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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




H.M. THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND. 



Hips' fistorical T|eiiher$- 



STORIES 



FROM 



ENGLISH HISTORY 



HISTORICAL READER No. I. 



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WITH MAP AND 62 ILLUSTRATIONS. 



jjjoston, Jjjlass. : 

BOSTON SCHOOL SUPPLY COMPANY, 

15 BROM FIELD STREET. 

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THE LIBRARY 
>* >NGRES5 

! WASHINGTON jj 



[Copyright 1884 6j/ Me Boston School Supply Co., Boston, Mass.] 




PREFACE. 

j HESE " Stories from English History " ■ aro 
designed not so much to instruct as to interest 
the younger children, and to excite in their minds 
a keen desire to know more of the history of the 
mother-country. To secure this, some latitude has been 
allowed in the construction and detail of the various 
stories ; and the semi-mythical element, which justly 
finds a place even in the larger and more pretentious histories, 
has not been rigidly excluded. 

The following stories must be regarded as a series of 
independent studies or monographs. No attempt has been 
made to supply the " missing links," and even if our limits 
permitted this to be done, we think it better, at this stage, 
to leave the teacher to give an oral resume of the intervening 
events. 

While the language used is simple, natural, and easily 
understood, we have carefully avoided the excessive " writing- 
down " which disfigures so many school-books, and which cer- 
tainly injures rather than benefits the child. 




a 



ENGLAND & WALES 



Historical 




Scale of English Miles 
<p . . . ..&<>_.._ loo 



CONTENTS. 



Cesar in Britain 

A British King .. 

A British Queen 

Britons and Saxons . . 

The Slave-Boys at Rome 

The Terrible Sea-Kins 

Alfred and the Danes 

Canute the Dane 

The Oath and the Battle 

The White Ship.. 

The Flight of Maud.. 

The Crusader King .. 

The Crusaders' War Song 

King John and Magna Charta 

The First Prince of Wales 

Bruce and Bannockburn 

The Three Feathers.. 

The Field of Agincourt 

The Maid of Orleans 

A Brave Queen . . 



rAGF. I PAGE 

9 I The First English Printer .. 74 

13 ! The Princes in the Tower . . 77 

16 Crowned on the Battlefield .. 79 

*8 Two Queens 82 

21 1 The Armada .. 86 

25 Queen and Courtier ". . .. 89 

26 ' Sir Waiter Raleigh 93 

29 The White King 97 

32 Royal Oak Day 100 

41 The Great Plague and the Great \^ 

43 '' Fire 102 

i 
46 : A Heroic Wife 105 

50 ' Prince Charlie's Escape .. ..109 

51 \ Wolfe and Quebec in 

54 ! Trafalgar 115 

57 j "Ye Mariners of England" .. 117 

fci ! Waterloo 119 

t>4 ! The Charge of the Light 

67 Brigade 122 

71 ' The Cawnpore Memorial .. ..125 



a 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Her Majesty the Queen. 



Frontispiece. 



A British Stronghold 
Ancient British Weapons 
Landing of the Romans . . 

Caractacus 

Caractacus Watching the Romans 
Roman Soldiers 

Boadicea 

A Saxon Ship 

Rowena and Vortigern . . 

Augustine and Ethelbert 

Rome 

A Viking's Boat 
Alfred in the Danish Camp 
Canute at the Sea-shore . . 
Harold taking the Oath . . 

Harold 

Landing of the Normans 
Duke William 

Henry I. 

The Flight of Maud 

Crusaders 

Saracens 

Crusaders on the March . . 
John Signing the Charter 
Edward I. and the Welsh Chiefs 
Bruce at Bannockburn . . 
John of Bohemia at Crecy 
The Prince of Wales's Feathers 
Henry V. at Agincourt . . 
J oan of Arc 
Temple Gardens 



page l 

ii i 

14 ! 

9. i5 

17 I 

19 ! 
20 

23 

24 
26 
28 

31 
33 
35 
37 
39 
41 
44 
46 

47 
49 
52 

55 

59 
62 
63 
65 
69 
7i 



Queen Margaret and the Robber 
Caxton and Edward IV. . . 
The Princes in the Tower 

Henry VII 

Crowned on the Battlefield 

Elizabeth 

Queen Mary 

Holyrood Palace . . 
Elizabeth at Tilbury 

The Armada 

Death of Elizabeth 
Sir Walter Raleigh 
Queen Elizabeth and Lady Paget 

Charles I 

Cavalier and Roundhead. . 

Charles II 

The Restoration — Landing of 

Charles II. 
The Great Fire 
Escape of Lord Nithsdale 
The Battle of Culloden . . 
Prince Charlie 
Death of Wolfe 
Horatio Nelson 
Battle of Trafalgar 
The Duke of Wellington . . 

Napoleon I 

The Battle of Waterloo . . 

The Charge of the Light Brigade 

Cawnpore 

The Cawnpore Memorial 



Map of England and Wales, containing every Name mentioned in the Text . 



PAGK 
72 

75 
78 

79 
81 
82 
84 
85 
86 
88 
9i 
93 
95 
97 
9 3 
100 

102 
104 
107 
109 
no 
113 
ii5 
116 
119 
120 
121 
123 
125 
127 

vi 




CJESAR IN BRITAIN. 

ABOUT two thousand years 
ago, England was dwelt in 
by a people called Britons. The 
same race still lives in Wales. 

These Britons were bold and 
hardy. Their life was passed in 
the open air. While there were 
bears and wolves in the forest, beavers and otters in the 
river, none need ever be idle. In autumn, the ground 
near the reed-thatched hut was yellow with corn, which 
had been sown in spring. In every season, their flocks 
of sheep and cattle had to be watched and herded. 

But free though their life might be, it was not law- 



J^OMAN S'QLplt^S 



io STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

less, for their priests, or Druids, 1 were also their law- 
givers and judges. 

The Britons who lived in the southern part of the 
island were more civilised than those who dwelt in the 
north. They wore clothing of their own making, could 
work in metals, and used coins of gold, silver, and 
bronze. 

From early times they had some trade with other 
countries, for it was not likely that a land which had 
tin, iron, gold, silver, pearls, horses, and corn, would be 
left altogether unvisited. At times, a ship came from 
Carthage 2 or Spain ; then, on a level strip of ground 3 
now covered by the sea, the Britons, with their waggons 
laden with tin, met the foreign merchants. 

As time went on, they had more and more dealings 
with other nations. Many strangers came from afar to 
be taught by the Druids, and British warriors often 
crossed the sea to help their kinsmen in Gaul. 4 

One day, some of these men returned with startling 
news, which roused the country like a trumpet-blast. 
Caesar, the great general, who had fought his way from 
a far-off city, Rome, and conquered wherever he fought 
— Caesar was coming to invade Britain ! 

Men sprang to their horses. Through the forests and 
over the hills, from one hamlet to another, they rode, 
shouting their war-cry and calling the people to arms, 
for Caesar was coming ! Before long, not a man was to 
be seen in the cornfields — the women and children sat 
and wept as they watched the cattle. 

As the Roman galleys neared the shore, Caesar saw 
beach and cliff covered with British warriors, waving 
their spears, and defying the enemy to land. 

Caesar paused. It would be as well, he thought, to 



CxESAR IN BRITAIN. 



II 



find a better landing-place. As lie sailed along the coast, 
the Britons moved also ; and, when at last he cast anchor 
near Deal, 5 there they were, yelling and brandishing their 
weapons. The Romans, although brave and fearless, drew 
back for a moment. But the standard-bearer of the 
tenth legion, crying out, " Follow me, if you would not 
see the eagle 6 in the hands of the enemy," leapt into 
the water, and was instantly followed by his comrades. 




LANDING OF THE ROMANS. 



What was the use of courage to the Britons now ? 
Valour would not clothe them in Roman mail ; despair 
could not change their rude spears and arrows into 
sharp-edged Roman arms. Bravely they fought ; but, 
before night, thousands were dead and the rest scattered. 

From their forest-homes the Britons watched the 
enemy ; and, in war-chariot, on horseback, or on foot. 



12 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



constantly cut off small parties and lonely camps. 
Once, when some Roman soldiers went out to reap a 
cornfield, the Britons fell upon them so suddenly that 
few escaped. The Roman army, however, was far too 
strong ; and in the end the Britons sued for peace, 
which was gladly granted. Soon after, Caesar left 
Britain for Gaul. 7 

Next year, he returned with a much larger army. 
He found the natives as firm as ever. The Romans 
were allowed to land quietly ; the Britons, uniting their 
forces under a brave warrior named Cassivelaunus, 
drew back to the woods. But on the march, the 
Romans, when least ready for it, often found themselves 
hemmed in by thousands of Britons in their terrible 
war-chariots. 8 Like the rush of a torrent, these chariots 
swept through the Roman ranks, leaving behind them a 
path of dead bodies. 

But Cassivelaunus, with all his bravery, could only 
delay the end. A pitched battle was almost always a 
defeat. After a fierce fight at Chertsey, 9 the British 
leader was taken prisoner and his army put to flight. 

Caesar returned to Rome in triumph, and hung up in 
the temple of Venus a shield studded with pearls he had 
brought from Britain. But, as one great Roman writer 
said, " Caesar did not conquer Britain ; he only showed 
it to the Romans." For nearly a hundred years after- 
wards, none of the Roman emperors invaded Britain. 



1. Called Druids, from the British word der- 

wydd, an oak. Some of their rites were 
performed in groves of oak. 

2. Carthage, a great commercial city in North 

Africa, near Tunis ; it was for long the 
rival of Rome. 

3. Near Land's End. 

4. Gaul, the ancient name of France. 

5. Deal, on the east coast of Kent, opposite the 

Downs. 

6. The Eagle, the sole ensign of the Roman 



legion. " The golden eagle which glittered 
in front of the legion was the object of the 
fondest devotion of the Roman troops." 

7. B.C. 55. 

8. War-chariots. These chariots had sharp 

scythes or blades fixed to the axles. Cas- 
sivelaunus had four thousand of them. 

9. Chertsey, in Surrey. Near it, at the ford of 

Coway Stakes, several sharp stakes of oak 
were recently found. These are now in 
the British Museum. 



A BRITISH KING. 



13 



A BRITISH KING. 




CAKACTACUS. 



ST the year 50, the Emperor 
Claudius 1 rode in triumph 2 
through Rome. Behind 
his chariot came a Briton 
with his wife and children. 
It was a novel sight in 
that great city. The people 
knew about this man, Carac- 
tacus, 3 and came in thou- 
sands to see him. 

He walked erect and with 
firm step ; his chains, they 
said, could not be heavy. 
As he looked at the palaces and temples, the massive 
buildings and great archways, he felt it strange that the 
Romans strove to conquer Britain. 

" How is it," said he, " that you, who live in palaces, 
envy us, and take from us our huts ? " 

It was a hard question to answer. Nine long years 
had Claudius and his generals taken to conquer this 
man. As he retired after every defeat, the Romans 
advanced, and gradually hemmed him in. The end 
might have been foreseen. 

Caractacus built his last fortress 4 on a hill in Wales, 
which had a river at its base. He had planted sharp 
stakes in the bed and banks of the river, but the Romans 
crossed as if they were not there. He drew up his army 
as the enemy advanced, and ran along the line crying, 
" Conquer the Romans, or they will make you slaves ! " 
The Britons fought well, but they were beaten. 
Caractacus fled to the house of his stepmother, 5 to 



H 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



whom he had formerly shown some kindness. In her 
desire to gain the favour of the Romans, she betrayed 




CARACTACUS WATCHING THE ROMANS. 



him into their hands. Fortune had not smiled on him, 
but his spirit was unbroken. 

On the day that Caractacus walked behind the em- 
peror's chariot as a part of the Roman triumph, Claudius 
was struck by his bearing. In the evening, he ordered 
his soldiers to bring him before the throne. 

" Briton," said the emperor, " you know the fate of 
all who dare to bear arms against Rome. You know 
that you are doomed to death." 

" I know it," said Caractacus ; " but what have I to 



A BRITISH KING. 



'5 



regret ? If I had yielded sooner, my glory and your 
triumph would not have been so great. Why should I 




ROMAN SOLDIERS. 



care to live longer ? My liberty and my home are gone. 
Is it not as easy to die here as in battle ? " 

" You shall not die," said the emperor kindly. " You 
are free, and Rome shall welcome a great enemy as a 
friend." 

Caractacus spent the rest of his life in Rome. He 
might wander as he pleased through the crowded streets, 
but he was never to return to his own country. 



1. Claudius, Emperor of Rome, 41-54 A.D. 

2. Triumph, the grand procession through 

Rome in honour of any general who added 
new territory to the empire. 

3. Caractacus, called by the Britons Caradog. 

He was king of the Silures in South 



Wales. The vignette on page 13 is from a 
bust in the British Museum. 

4. Last fortress, Caer Caradog, in Shropshire. 

5. Stepmother, Cartismandua, Queen of the 

Brigantes — a British tribe who lived north 
of the Humber. 



i6 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



A BRITISH QUEEN. 

IN the time of Nero 1 the news reached Rome that 
two Roman cities had been destroyed in Britain, 
and eighty thousand Romans slain. The Britons, led 
by a woman, had risen in rebellion while the Roman 
general was absent in Mona, 2 and had almost thrown off 
the Roman yoke. 

Boadicea, 8 who made this effort to free her country, 
was the heroic queen of the brave Iceni. 4 She was tall 
and had long yellow hair. She wore a dress of many 
colours, and in her hand she carried a spear. Wher- 
ever she was seen or heard, the people rose and followed 
her ; they had wrongs, and she held out to them the 
hope of relief. 

When she had mustered her warriors, she spoke to 
them. "If the Romans," she said, "have wronged us, 
they have not destroyed our strength. They can endure 
neither hunger nor thirst, cold nor heat, as we can. 
Every herb and root is food to us ; every stream, wine ; 
and every tree, a house. Let us show them that, if 
they are hares and foxes, they strive for the mastery 
over dogs and wolves." 

Boadicea then led the Britons to battle, and was at 
their head when they burnt London and Colchester and 
slew the inhabitants. Paulinus might hurry back from 
Mona and range his men for battle — she was ready to 
meet them. 

Mounted on a car, she drew up her army in a single 
line and faced the Romans. 

Paulinus cried to his men, " Come on, fellow soldiers ! 
come on, Romans ! Show these pests how far we can 



A BRITISH QUEEN. 



17 




B0AD1CKA. 



B 



i8 



STOKIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



surpass them. Let us subdue them or die on the spot ; 
if you conquer these, none will again resist you." 

The two armies advanced ; the Britons shouting songs 
of defiance, the Romans marching in silence and order 
till within a short distance of the enemy. Then they 
suddenly rushed forward. Horse, foot, and chariot were 
mixed in wild confusion. For a long time, victory stood 
still. Finally the Romans conquered, killing great 
numbers and taking many prisoners. 

Some of the Britons, however, would not submit, and 
prepared to fight again ; but Boadicea was not among 
them. Seeing how the day would end, she had taken 
poison rather than fall into the hands of the Romans. 



1. Nero, Emperor of Rome, 54-68 A.D. 

2- Mona, the modern Anglesey, then the head- 
quarters of Druidism ; the Roman army 
under Pauliuus crossed the Menai Straits 



and rooted out the Druids. 

3. Boadicea, the British Buddug, has the same 

meaning as the modern name Victoria. 

4. Iceni, a tribe in Norfolk and Suffolk. 



BRITONS AND SAXONS. 

" The blast of the tempest aids our oars ; 
The roar of the storm alarms us not ; 
The wind is our slave, and blows us where we list." 



THE singer sat at a feast given by Hengist, the 
Saxon, 1 in honour of a victory over the Picts and 
Scots. 2 On the right hand of the Saxon chief sat Vor- 
tigern, the British king. It pleased him to know that 
it was by his wish these strong, fair-haired men had 
come to Britain, that it was by his kindness they now 
dwelt in the Isle of Thanet. 3 

It was strange for a Briton to think in this way, but 
four hundred years of Roman rule had changed the 
race and dulled its spirit. King Vortigern was too 



BRITONS AND SAXONS. 



19 



listless to be hopeful. The Picts and Scots from the 
north, the Saxon pirates from the east, were too strong 
for him ; so he got the Saxons to fight against the rest 
of his foes. 

Thus far, all had gone well. He did not grudge the 




A SAXON SHIP. 



Saxons their glory, as they talked of war and victory ; and 
he listened drowsily as a warrior began another song — 

" The fire has passed through the dwellings of men ; 
We have marched with our bloody swords, and the raven has 
followed us." 

In the hum of voices which followed, Vortigern was 
roused by the sound of a sweet voice speaking to him. 

" May the gods grant you health, my lord the king ! " 
Rowena, daughter of the Saxon chief, knelt before him, 
holding in her hand the wassail- cup. 4 Vortigern thought 
he had never seen any one so fair. He rose and stood 



20 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



before her as he took the cup from her hand. In a 
short time he made her his wife, and another feast was 
held on the day of their wedding. 




EOWENA AND VOK'TIGERN. 



The Britons meanwhile learnt to fear their new allies, 
and tried to curb their power. Quarrels soon led to 
open war. Many fierce battles were fought : but, at 
last, a short truce was agreed to ; and Hengist, it is 
said, invited Vortigern and his chiefs to a banquet. 
The two parties were friendly at first, but as the feast 
went on they became more and more violent. 

" Are your warriors birds of prey, that they should 
swoop down upon our land and hold it in their 
clutches ? " shouted an angry voice. 

" Let him take who will and keep who can," was the 
defiant retort. 

" Are your moors so barren that they will not feed 
you?" cried a Briton. 



THE SLAVE-BOYS AT ROME. 



21 



" Is your corn so tough that we cannot cut it ? " 
answered a Saxon with a laugh. 

" We want no more Saxon hordes." 

" Then sail away to Brittany ; we shall not follow you 
there." 

The voices grew louder and angrier, till above them 
rang a cry from Hengist — " Take your daggers." 

His followers obeyed the command, and of the three 
hundred Britons only one escaped. 5 

After this, the Saxons in time spread over all Eng- 
land. Far in the west, the Britons found refuge in the 
mountains of Wales, where their children still live, and 
where their language is still spoken. 



1. Saxon. The Saxons and kindred tribes came 
from the district between the North Sea 
and the Baltic. Hengist came over in 449. 
2. Picts and Scots. The Picts were at this time 
the inhabitants of the North of Scotland. 
The Scots had come from the north of 
Ireland, and occupied the south-west of 
Scotland. Both were probably Celtic. 



Isle of Thanet, the extreme north-east part 
of Kent; until the year 1500, separated 
from the mainland by the sea. 

Wassail-cup, a cup of spiced ale, in which 
the Saxons drank each other's health 
(A.S. waes-hael, "be in health "). 

Vortigern. This is the British account ; but 
it is not now believed to be the true one. 



THE SLAVE BOYS AT ROME. 

ST. GREGORY the Great was one day walking, deep 
in thought, through the slave-market in Rome. 
Suddenly, as if passing from gloom to sunshine, he found 
himself looking at a group of children. They had soft, 
fair cheeks and blue eyes ; their curly hair fell round 
their baby faces. They were like sunbeams in a dar- 
kened room amidst the swarthy slaves of Southern lands. 
" Who are these children ? " asked St. Gregory. 
" From what land do they come ? What is the name of 
their nation ? " 



22 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

" They are Angles," 1 was the reply. 

" Angles ! " cried St. Gregory. " They are angels ! 
Look at their heavenly faces." 

" No ! " exclaimed the slave-dealer. " They are 
pagans, and still under the power of the devil." 

A tenderness towards these children awoke in the 
heart of the saint. For their sake he loved their nation, 
and greatly desired to give it that which he held 
dearest — the gospel of Christ. 

Years afterwards, when he was Pope, his desire was 
granted. He sent Augustine with a band of forty monks 
to Britain. In the year 597, these good men landed 
in the Isle of Thanet, and found a warm friend in the 
Queen of Kent. 2 At her wish, her husband Ethelbert 
consented to receive the strangers from Rome and to hear 
them. The meeting took place in the open air, for the 
Saxons believed that, if these men had evil powers, they 
could not hurt them there. 

The king sat under an oak-tree in the midst of a 
group of Saxon chiefs. The monks came over the green 
fields, chanting the litany 3 and holding up a silver cross. 
Then Augustine told Ethelbert the glad news of i peace 
on earth, goodwill toward men.' 

" These are fair words," said Ethelbert, " but to us 
they are both strange and new. Nevertheless, since 
you have come in love and hold these tidings to be good 
and true, we will give you good cheer, and do not for- 
bid you to preach them to the people." 

As the Saxons watched the lives of the monks, they 
loved them more and more, and at last desired to share 
their faith. Thousands of the people became Christians 
and were baptized. 

The message which the monks brought was listened 



THE SLAVE-BOYS AT ROME. 



23 




AUGUSTINE AND ETHELBERT, 



24 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



to in many different ways. " So seems the life of man, 
king ! " said an old man to Edwin, king of the 
Northumbrians, "as a sparrow's flight through the hall 
when you are sitting at meat in winter-tide. The 
sparrow flies in at one door, lingers for a moment in the 
light and heat of the fire, and then flying forth from the 
other, goes out again into darkness. So tarries for a 
moment the life of man in our sight. If these men 
can tell us whence we came or whither we go, let us 
hear them." 

" None have served the gods more faithfully than I 
have," said the high-priest of Northumbria, " yet they 
have never helped me to any honour with the king. 
Our gods are worthless. If the new religion be true, 
let us accept it." He then sprang to his horse and 
galloped to the nearest temple. Hurling his spear into 
the centre, he urged the people to destroy the place and 
to burn their idols. 

So the worship of Thor and Woden 5 passed away; 
and the " little angels " in the market-place of Rome 
were thus the heralds of a higher and a nobler faith. 



1. Angles. The slave-boys came from North- 

umbria. The Angles had occupied the 
greater part of the east coast of England, 
or Angle-land. 

2. Queen of Kent, Bertha, daughter of the King 

of Paris ; she was already a Christian. 

3. Litany, a prayer or supplication, a portion 

of the Church service. 



4. Northumbria, that is, the land north of the 

Humber. Edwin founded a city on the 
Eorth— Edwinsburgh, now Edinburgh. 

5. Thor, the Thunderer, was the Saxon god of 

war ; Woden, or Odin, was their chief 
god. From these, two days of the week 
get their names — Wednesday or Woden's 
day, and Thursday or Thor's d;iy. 




THE TERRIBLE SEA-KING. 25 

THE TERRIBLE SEA-KING. 

'THE Sea-King came of a royal train, 

And roved with, his Northmen 1 the land and the 
main. 2 
"Woe to the realms 3 which he wasted, for there, 
There was shedding of blood and rending of hair, 
Stealing of child and killing of priest, 
Gathering of ravens and wolves to the feast. 
When he hoisted his standard black, 
Before him was battle, behind him was wrack, 4 
And he burned the churches, that heathen Dane, 
To light his band to their barks again. 
On Erin's 5 shore was his outrage known ; 
The winds of Erance 6 had his banner blown : 
Little there was to plunder, but still 
His pirates had foraged 7 on Scottish hill ; 
But upon merry England's coast 
Most frequent he sailed, for he won the most. 
So wide and so far his ravage they knew, 
If a sail had gleamed 'gainst the welkin's 8 blue, 
Trumpet and bugle to arms did call ; 
Burghers 9 hastened to man the wall ; 
Peasants 10 fled inland his fury to 'scape ; 
Beacons were lighted on watch-tower and cape ; 
Bells were tolled out, and aye as they rung, 
Tearful and faintly the grey brothers n sung, 
" Defend us, Lord, from flood and from fire, 
Erom famine and pest and Northman's ire." 12 

Scott. 



1. Northmen, see page 29, note 3. 

2. The Main, the great sea. 

3. Realms, kingdoms, countries. 

4. Wrack, ruin, destruction. 

5. Erin, Ireland. 

6. The Norsemen under Rollo conquered the ' 11. Grey brothers, monks 

part of France called from them Nor- '■ 12. Ire, anger, wrath, 
mandy. I 



7. Foraged, roamed about in search of food or 
spoil. 

8. Welkin, the sky. 

9. Burghers, dwellers in boroughs, or towns. 
10. Peasants, country people. 



26 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 




A VIKING S BOAT. 



ALFRED AND THE DANES. 

WHEN Alfred, at the age of twenty-two, succeeded 
his brother, 1 England was troubled by the Danes. 
Old men, whose homes were near the sea, still spoke of 
the day when first they saw the terrible Vikings 2 in their 
long black boats. Since then, the Danish galleys and 
their blood-red flags had become a signal of terror all 
along the coast. The Saxons knew that, wherever these 
sea-rovers came, their cattle would be killed, their vil- 
lages and churches burnt, and their wives and children 
carried off as slaves. 

Like robbers, who are bribed with silver but return 
for gold, the Danes 3 came back again and again, finally 
taking possession of the north and east of England and 
settling there. 



ALFRED AND THE DANES. 27 

After seven years of almost constant war, Alfred was 
able to come to terms with the Danes. But just as he 
thought his work was done, the treaty was broken. 
Guthrum, the Danish leader, fell suddenly upon Chip- 
penham, 4 and Alfred sought safety in flight. This fresh 
attack struck terror into the hearts of his followers, who 
deserted him and fled. 

Alfred was now almost in despair. He wandered 
about in the woods, and agreed to work for a peasant 
if he would give him food and a bed of straw. One 
clay, so the story runs, the cotter's wife, leaving the hut, 
told the king to watch and turn the cakes which were 
baking on the hearth. 

Alfred sat down beside the fire mending his bow 
and sharpening his arrows — all the time thinking and 
planning how he could free his country from the Danes. 
He would beat them yet, he felt certain — he would him- 
self put them to flight. As he thus thought, the good 
woman stood beside him. 

" What have you done with my cakes ? " she cried 
angrily. " Every one of them is burnt. You'd have 
been glad enough to eat them." 

Alfred smiled, and begged her pardon. The woman 
did not then know that her careless servant was the king. 

But the Saxons soon found out his hiding-place, and 
now and then came to visit him. For greater safety, 
he took up his abode in a fortress on an island 5 sur- 
rounded by marsh and forest. Here he was joined by 
many of his followers, and prepared to attack the Danes. 
He would, he must, beat them ; and yet how could he 
learn their strength and know what they were going 
to do? 

Suddenly, like a half-forgotten air, an idea came 



28 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



into his mind. Long ago, when a boy, his mother had 
taught him to play on the harp. He would dress him- 
self as a minstrel, and thus make his way into the 
Danish camp. No sooner thought of than done ! 

He was taken to the tent of Guthrum, the Danish 
leader. The Danes listened to his songs, little thinking 

that the singer was 



the Saxon king. 
Alfred heard their 
plans ; and, when he 
had learnt where 
they next meant to 
attack, he went 
back to his fortress 
and prepared to 
meet them. 

Not long after, 
the Saxon army met 
at Egberstone, 6 on 
the borders of Sel- 
wood Forest. With 
Alfred at their head, 
they marched to 
Ethandune, 7 where 
J the Danes were en- 
camped. Surprised 
by the sudden attack of the Saxons and their king, the 
Danes fled, and Guthrum was taken prisoner. And 
now Alfred's foes were changed into firm friends. The 
broken oaths were all forgotten ; and, when the old Sea- 
king was baptized, it was Alfred who stood sponsor 8 
for him. 

" So long as I have lived," wrote Alfred in his old 




ALFRED IN THE DANISH CAMP. 



CANUTE THE DANE. 



29 



age, " I have striven to live worthily." Who, that ever 
looked on him and heard of his constant labours, of the 
fleet he had built, of the army he had formed, of the 
merchants, scholars, and travellers he had befriended, 
who would have thought that amidst all, that noble man 
was always suffering and in pain? 

One day, the king showed his old friend Asser 9 a book 
which he called his " constant friend and comfort." It 
was filled with daily lessons, prayers, and psalms, which 
he had himself written. While he lived, men called him 
the Truthteller and the Great; and his name and example 
are not yet forgotten. 



1. Ethelred, who died in 871. 

2. Vikings, Scandinavian rovers. The word 

means "sons of the creek." They were so 
called because they dwelt on the shores of 
the bays and fiords of Scandinavia. 

3. Danes, or Norsemen, Scandinavians from 

Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. 

i. Chippenham, an ancient royal borough in 
Wiltshire, on the Avon, twelve miles north- 
east of Bath. 

5. Island, Athelney, the Isle of Princes, in 



Somersetshire, at the junction of the Parret 
and the Tone. 

6. Egberstone, i.e., Egbert's stone, now Brixton, 

in Wilts. Egbert, who reigned from 827 to 
836, was the first 'Overlord of all Eng- 
land.' 

7. Ethandune, now called Edington, in Wilts. 

8. Sponsor, one who pledges himself for an- 

other, a godfather. 

9. Asser, a Welsh bishop, the friend ana bio- 

grapher of Alfred. 



CANUTE THE DANE. 

ONE day, a royal barge went gently down the river 
Ouse towards Ely. As the men rowed slowly and 
steadily along, the sound of voices singing was heard 
across the water. The music seemed to give pleasure 
to a man who sat in the stern of the boat. He was 
short but strongly built ; his face showed a strong will, 
a hot temper, and a kind nature. Presently, he began 
to sing — 

" Merry the monks of Ely sing 
As by them rows Canute x the king ; 
Row, men, to the land more near, 
That we these good monks' songs may hear." 2 



30 STOEIES FKOM ENGLISH HISTORY.. 

Other verses followed, and they were sung in after 
years by the monks of Ely, who spoke with pride of the 
many gifts which the king had given them in memory 
of that day. 

This was not the only visit that Canute paid to Ely. 3 
Every year on Twelfth Night 4 the king and his friends 
used to go there to feast in the Abbey. At that time of 
the year, the river was generally frozen over. Some of 
the party crossed on foot, others were driven in sledges. 

One day, however, there was a difficulty. The ice 
was neither thick enough to be perfectly secure, nor thin 
enough to be altogether unsafe. The king desired to 
cross ; his friends did not wish him to risk his life. 
There was a poor man in the crowd who was tall and 
stout, and who had gained the laughable name of Pud- 
ding. This man settled the matter. 

" Come," said Pudding, " let me go first. If the ice 
will bear me, it will certainly bear the king. If I can 
go, so can he. Let the king come after me." 

The king laughed, agreed to follow him, and the two 
reached Ely together. Before the end of the year, 
Pudding was a rich man. 

As Canute grew older, he showed himself wiser and 
gentler. His love for power had been great, and he 
now ruled over Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Britons, 
Scots, and Saxons. His father's 5 dream of a Danish 
empire, with England as its centre, was realised. 

His great success had not, however, made him vain or 
selfish. It is said that he was one day walking on the 
shore with his courtiers. These men, desiring to please 
him, began to flatter. One said that he had great power, 
another added that he was very able, some one else 
cried out that no one on earth could oppose him, and a 



CANUTE THE DANE. 



31 



fourth vowed that even the winds and the waves must 
obey him. 




CANUTE AT THE SEA-SHOKE. 



Canute looked at his friends in silence, and smiled. 
Then he ordered a chair to he brought and set down 



near the water's edge. 



32 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



Turning towards the last speaker, he said, " I com- 
mand the waves to retire." 

The tide was coming rapidly in, but the king sat 
motionless and looked out to sea. 

" Come no farther," he said aloud, " nor dare to ap- 
proach me unbidden ! " 

There was an awkward silence as a wave dashed over 
the king's feet. 

" So we are powerless after all," he said with a smile 
in which there was no bitterness. Then he bade them 
give their homage 6 to the King of kings, " for to Him, 
and Him alone " he said, " we all must bow." 



1. Canute (1017-35), the first Danish king of 

England. His father, Sweyn, had con- 
quered England, hut died three weeks 
after being proclaimed king. 

2. This is the first piece of verse of which the 

language is really English. The spelling 
only has been changed. 

3. Ely, in Cambridgeshire. 



4. Twelfth Night, the twelfth night after Christ- 

mas—the 6th of January. 

5. Sweyn, King of Denmark. He came to 

England with a large army to avenge 
the massacre of the Danes by Ethelred 
the Unready. Sweyn's sister was one of 
the slain. 

6. Homage, worship, reverence. 



THE OATH AND THE BATTLE. 

ONE of the most powerful nobles in the reign of 
Edward the Confessor 1 was Earl Godwin. 2 When 
he died, his lands passed to his eldest son, Harold, to 
whom Nature had given beauty, strength, and a fierce 
desire for glory, and who hoped one day to sit upon the 
English throne. 

There was another man, however, who also had this 
hope — a man far more ambitious than Harold, and at 
least as warlike. This was William, Duke of Nor- 
mandy. 3 As it chanced, he had paid a visit to the 
kino- of England at a time when Harold and his 

c"> o 

father had left the country in disgrace. Edward, who 



THE OATH AND THE BATTLE. 



33 




H AHOLD TAKING THE OATH. 



34 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



liad spent his boyhood in Normandy, loved no one so 
well as his Norman friend. He had already given 
him lands and honours, and now he told him the wish 
he cherished — that, on his death, England might have 
William as her king. 

Not long after, another stroke of fortune seemed to 
favour William's hopes. Harold was wrecked on the 
coast of Normandy, and was taken before the Duke. 
The rivals were very polite to each other ; but when 
Harold, after spending some months at Rouen, wished 
to return to England, William urged him to swear to be 
always his friend. 

The first proof of friendship which Harold was asked 
to give, was a promise to help the Duke by all means in 
his power to obtain the crown of England upon Edward's 
death. What could the helpless Harold do ? He knew 
he was at the mercy of the Duke ; so, much against his 
will, he agreed to take the oath. 

On a chest, covered with a cloth of gold, a Bible was 
placed, on which Harold laid his hand, swearing solemnly 
to keep his oath. The Bible and the cloth of gold 
were then removed ; the chest was opened, and Harold, 
looking into it, saw for the first time that it held the 
relics 4 of departed saints. He shuddered and turned 
pale ; and the Normans, who stood round him, said to 
one another that he could never break an oath made 
over the sacred relics. How far he kept his promise 
we shall see. 



1. Edward the Confessor, i.e., Edward the 

Priest. Edward, when in exile, bad been 
educated for the Church. He was always 
more of a priest than a king. 

2. Godwin was made Earl of Wessex by Canute, 

and became the most powerful of the 
Saxon nobles. His daughter Edith was the 



wife of Edward the Confessor ; of his sons, 
Harold was Earl of East Anglia, Sweyn of 
Mercia, and Tostig of Northumbria. 

3. Normandy, a province in the north of 

France, so called from its Norse con- 
querors. 

4. Relics, bodies or remains of saints. 



THE OATH AND THE BATTLE. 




HAROLD. 



THE OATH AND THE BATTLE— continued. 

FEW months after Harold's 
return to England, Edward 
the Confessor died. Who 
should now be king ? Ed- 
ward had promised the 
crown to the Duke of Nor- 
mandy, and Harold had 
sworn to help William to 
secure it. But, after all, 
the Witan, 1 as the Saxon 
!%* parliament was called, must 
decide the question; and, ere 
long, every one knew that 
Harold had been chosen. 
The new king's enemies, however, were many. His 
brother Tostig had never forgiven him for the loss of 
Northumberland, and hurried to Normandy the moment 
he heard of Harold's coronation. William was not 
quick enough to satisfy him ; so off he set to Norway, 
where he found an ally after his own heart in Harold 
Hardrada, the ]a-«*t of the Sea-kings. 

In a short time, the Norsemen sailed up the Humber, 2 
burning and plundering as they went. Even York 3 
agreed to surrender to them ; and, on the day fixed, 
Tostig and Hardrada left their camp to receive the keys 
of the city. 

On their way thither they were surprised by the sight 
of a cloud of dust, lit up here and there by gleaming 
armour and bright standards. Tostig saw his brother's 
banner. There he was already, by quick marches from 
the south. 



36 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



Hardrada at once gathered his men around him, planted 
his standard in the ground, and prepared to defend it. 

Twenty men rode out from the Saxon army, and the 
first called out, " Where is Earl Tostig, son of Godwin ? " 

" He is here," cried Tostig. 

" Thy brother salutes thee ; and if thou wilt make 
peace with him, he will give thee half of his kingdom." 

" And what does he offer my noble ally, King Harold, 
Sigurd's son ? " 

"Seven feet of English earth, or maybe a little more." 

"Then," said Tostig, "my brother may prepare for 
battle. Never shall it be said that the son of Godwin 
forsook the son of Sigurd ! " 

The Norsemen made ready for battle, and their king 
sang a lay of his own to cheer them — 

" In battle now we seek no lee, 
With skulking head and bending knee, 

Behind the hollow shield ; 
With eye and hand we guard the head ; 
Courage and promptness stand instead 
Of hauberk 4 on this field." 

Like the fabled swan he sang before his death, for in 
the battle he was slain. Long the Norsemen fought 
around their banner and dead king. Tostig, with many 
another warrior, fell beside him ; and Harold was 
victorious. 

Another enemy, however, had still to be met. A few 
days after the battle of Stamford Bridge, 5 Harold heard 
that William of Normandy had landed at Pevensey Bay, 
on the coast of Sussex. 



1. Witan, the Witena-gemot or assembly of the 

wise, the Saxon parliament. 

2. Humber, the estuary of the Ouse and the 

Trent. 

3. York, on the Ouse, the capital of the North. 



4. Hauberk, originally armour for the protec- 

tion of the neck; it usually means a shirt 
of mail formed of small steel links. 

5. Stamford Bridge, on the Derwent, in York- 

shire. 



THE OATH AND THE BATTLE. 



37 



THE OATH AND THE BATTLE— continued. 



heard 
castle, 



WILLIAM was hunting in the forest when he 
of Harold's coronation. He returned to his 
and paced up and 
down the hall, gloomy 
and silent, recalling 
all that Harold had 
sworn to do, and 
thinking of what he 
had done. At length 
an old knight spoke 
to him. 

" Sire," he said, 
" why hide from us 
wh at we already know, 
and what a thousand 
men are ready to 
avenge ? There is not 
a man in Normandy 
who will not defend 
your rights with sword 
and dagger. Harold 
has broken his solemn 
oath of fealty 1 and 
must be punished." 

William waited 
no longer. Warriors 
nocked from all parts to his standard. To one he pro- 
mised land, to another money. Every one hoped to gain 
something. 




LANDING OF THE NORMANS. 



38 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

A thousand ships set sail for England, filled with 
men-at-arms, archers, and knights. When they landed 
in Pevensey Bay, William ordered the ships to be burnt. 
Harold, meanwhile, marched rapidly southward ; and, 
on the I 2th of October 1066, was within seven miles of 
the enemy. He posted his soldiers on Senlac Hill. 2 
Round the camp, trenches were dug and stakes driven 
into the ground. Harold planted his banners in the 
centre and took up his place between them. On one 
side was the Golden Dragon, the old ensign of Wessex 3 ; 
on the other was Harold's own standard. 

By the following day, the Normans were at the foot 
of the hill. The night was spent by the two armies 
in widely different fashions. In the Saxon camp, the 
soldiers feasted ; they pledged one another in wine, and 
sang war-songs. In the Norman camp, the men listened 
to the prayers of the priests and confessed their sins. 

With the early morning the battle began. As the 
Normans drew near the Saxons, Taillefer the minstrel 
rode out from the Norman ranks. He wished to be 
the first to strike a blow. He sang as he went, and 
waved his sword above his head. Two men fell by his 
hand, and then he himself was slain. 

The Norman archers shot thick and fast, but the 
Saxons stood firm. The Norman knights charged fiercely; 
but the Saxon battleaxes clove through their massive 
armour, and felled them to the ground in great numbers. 

The horse which William rode was killed beneath 
him, and the alarm passed from man to man, " The 
Duke is dead." The Normans turned to run ; the 
Saxons would fain have followed them, but Harold 
shouted, " Do nob break your ranks." 

Then William bared his head and cried to his men, 



THE OATH AND THE BATTLE. 



39 




DUKE WILLIAM. 



4 o STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

" I live, and by God's help I will conquer." He then 
told them to run again, as if they were in flight. 

The Saxons could not be held in a second time, and 
followed madly in pursuit. When their ranks were thus 
broken, the Normans turned upon them fiercely, and 
soon routed them. 

But the victory was not yet complete, for Harold and 
a band of faithful friends had never left their post beside 
the standard. At last the king and leader fell, pierced 
in the eye by a Norman arrow. Still they fought, and 
round the standard which they would yield to none they 
nobly died. 

That night, while the Normans rejoiced over their 
victory, the Saxon wives and mothers, weeping bitterly, 
wandered about the battle-field. 

Where was King Harold now ? A band of men 
followed a young girl 4 in silence, as she went restlessly 
from place to place, and held her torch above the still 
faces. At last, she found her lover on the battlefield, 
beside the men who had not deserted him in death. 

Thus ended one of the greatest battles ever fought on 
English ground. 



1. Oath of fealty, i. t., of fidelity, the solemn oath 

taken by a vassal that he would be the 
" true man " of his lord. 

2. Senlac Hill, seven or eight miles north-west 

from Hastings. In memory of his victory, 
William built a magnificent abbey, called 
Battle Abbey ; the altar stood on the spot 
where Harold fell. 



3. Wessex, at first one of the kingdoms of the 

Heptarchy ; it afterwards included all 
England south of the Thames. Its rulers 
became first " Overlords," and then Kings 
of all England. 

4. Edith, the swan-necked, had been betrothed 

to Harold when he was earl of East 
Anglia. 




THE WHITE SHIP. 



41 




HENRY I. 



THE WHITE SHIP. 

ENRY I. was about to re- 
turn to England after a 
successful visit to Nor- 
mandy. His only son, 2 who 
was the joy of his heart, had 
U been shown to the people 
as their future duke ; and 
the king was glad because 
he had pleased the Normans 
and was on good terms with 
them once more. 

When Henry was ready to 
leave, a sailor came to him. 
" My father," said he, " served your father all his life, 
and steered the ship in which he sailed to conquer 
England. My lord the king, I, too, would gladly serve 
you. I have a ship with fifty good sailors. Let me 
carry you over to England." 

(C I have already chosen a ship," the king replied ; 
" but you may bring my son and his companions," he 
added, on seeing the man's sorrow. 

The king set sail in the afternoon and had a speedy 
voyage, reaching England next morning. 

The prince remained, with a party of young noblemen 
and eighteen ladies, among whom was his half-sister 
Adela. 

"If we do not start till evening," the prince asked 
the captain, Fitzstephen, 3 " are we certain to reach Eng- 
land as soon as the king ? " 

" My ship," Fitzstephen answered, " goes faster than 



4 2 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

any other. I promise you we shall be in England before 
the king to-morrow." 

" Then, 5 ' said the prince, " let ns eat, drink, and be 
merry. Give your sailors three casks of wine, and tell 
them to drink to our health. Let them dance, we will 
set them the example.'' 

It was a lovely evening, there was hardly a breeze in 
the bay, the sun set, and the full moon rose. The young 
prince and his friends danced as if they had no other 
care on earth. 

At last, the time came when they must start. The 
anchor was weighed, and the ship set sail. The prince was 
in the highest spirits, and urged the men to row faster. 

The fifty sailors bent to their oars and pulled harder, 
but suddenly a shock was felt. The ship had struck 
upon a rock and began to sink. A small boat was 
lowered at once, and the prince was hurried into it. 
" Save the prince," cried Fitzstephen, " we who remain 
can die." As they rowed away, the prince heard his 
sister weeping. " Back, back," he called, " row back to 
the ship. I would rather die than leave her. Adela 
must come with us." 

The boat was put back, and the prince held out his 
arms for his sister. But one man after another rushed 
past her and leapt into the boat, which instantly sank. 
Then the White Ship, with all on board, disappeared 
beneath the waves. 

Two men held fast to a broken mast. One was a 
young butcher from Rouen, 4 the other a nobleman. 

A man with long black hair swam up to them. It 
was Fitzstephen, the captain of the White Ship. 

" Where is the prince ? " he asked. 

" Drowned," was the answer. 



THE FLIGHT OF MAUD. 



43 



"Woe is me ! " cried the unhappy man, and throwing 
up his arms, he sank to rise no more. 

Hours had passed when the nobleman said, " My 
hands are cold and stiff, I can hold on no longer. 
Good-bye, friend, and God keep you safe." 

Next morning, some fishermen saw a man clasping a 
spar floating on the water. They rowed out to him, 
lifted him, half dead as he was, into "their boat, and 
brought him to land. 

No one dared to tell the king that his boy was dead. 
At last a child, with the courage of innocence, went to 
him and told him all. 

Henry fell to the ground, and lay there as if dead. 
His only son, the joy of his heart, was no more. Time 
brought new joys and cares, but he never smiled again. 



1. Henry I., the youngest son of William I., 

succeeded his brother, William II., in 1101). 

2. Prince William, Henry's only son. 

3. Fitzstephen. Fitz, the Norman prefix mean- 



ing son: cf. the Celtic Mac or 0', the 
Welsh Ap ; the Saxon affix -ing, and Danish 
-son. 
4. Rouen, on the Seine, capital of Normandy. 



THE FLIGHT OF MAUD. 

LISTEN ! did you not hear a footstep ? " 
i Fear nothing, madam ; it was only the echo of 
our steps on the crisp snow." 

" Look now, where yonder tall black form stands 
motionless. It is one of Stephen's * soldiers. If he sees 
us, we are lost." 

" The moonlight deceives you, my lady. 'Tis but the 
shadow cast by a tree on the snow." 

" We still have time to return to Oxford. 2 I would 
rather starve within its walls than fall into the hands of 
mine enemies." 



44 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



" Keturn, madam ! Surely you forget the suffer- 
ings of the people ! Will their loyalty withstand 
the pangs of famine ? No bread, no meat, within the 
city ; and Stephen and his soldiers without, guarding 




■ ■ - '<Hz 

THE FLIGHT OF MAUD. 



every gate and road ! This hour will not come back 
again. Believe me, every soldier is sleeping in his tent, 
and the sentinels have left this spot unguarded. Have 
courage, madam. Your son" — 

He had touched a tender chord. Maud stood erect. 
With a haughty glance, she coldly said, " The daughter 



THE FLIGHT OF MAUD. 



45 



of a king needs not to be reminded of courage." She 
drew her white cloak around her, and hurried quickly 
over the snow. 

They had to pass through Stephen's camp. The 
ground was dotted with tents, which had stood there 
for weeks. As they left the last behind them, Maud 
turned and laughed defiantly. She had escaped ; and 
Stephen, if he pleased, might besiege the town for 
another year. Strangely enough, she seemed to forget 
that she owed anything to her guides. It was a com- 
plaint made by all who served her. 

From the first, her subjects had noticed her proud 
spirit and haughty temper. A year before her escape 
from Oxford, she had entered London. The people 
opened the gates to receive her, for they had loved her 
mother, " the good Queen Molde." 3 Her first speech to 
them was a demand for a large sum of money. 

" We shall grant your request," said a bold citizen, 
" if you give us back the charter of Henry I." 

" You are too saucy," she cried, " to speak to me 
of charters. Have you not borne arms amongst my 
enemies ? " With this rude answer she rode on to the 
palace, and gave no further sign of goodwill. 

Such treatment turned the hearts of the people 
from her. When her half-brother Robert, Earl of 
Gloucester, died, no one cared to take his place as her 
defender. And so it came to pass that, in the summer 
of I 142, a ship sailed to Normandy, bearing this un- 
happy queen away from a country which had grown 
tired of her ingratitude. 



1. Stephen, son of Adela, the only daughter of 
William the Conqueror. He was not the 
rightful heir to the throne ; and he had 
sworn to support Maud, the daughter of 
Henry I. 



2. Oxford, a university town on the Thames. 

3. "The Good Queen Molde," Matilda, the 

Saxon heiress to the throne. She was 
queen of Henry I., and was much loved by 
the people. 



a6 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY, 




CRUSADERS. 



THE CRUSADER KING. 

RICHARD I., the Lion-Heart, 1 was tall and strong. 
Fond of stirring adventures, of danger and hair- 
breadth escapes, he was better fitted to be a soldier than 
a king. No sooner was he crowned, than he set off with 
a train of knights and barons for the Holy Land to fight 
in the Crusades. 

Who would dare to oppose the Lion-Heart ? For 
two years, Acre 2 had been besieged by the Crusaders ; 3 
he came and took it in as many months. Then the 
Sultan Saladin 4 and his armv were defeated, and 
Ascalon 5 was the price of their defeat. Hearing that 
the Sultan was attacking Jaffa, 6 Richard hastened to its 
relief. " We have come to die with our brethren, and 
wee to him who fears to follow me ! " cried the Lion- 
Heart. As he spoke, he leapt into the sea ; the men 
on board the galleys followed his example, and soon put 
to flight the Saracens ' on shore. 

The Sultan Saladin was a worthy foe. Brave and 
noble himself, he honoured valour in others. When 
Flavel, the good Cyprian 8 steed, was killed under Richard 



THE CRUSADER KING. 47 




SARACENS. 

in battle, the Sultan sent him an Arab charger. When 
the king was ill, costly presents from the Sultan were 
carried to his tent. " I would rather," he said to Richard, 
when he made a truce 9 with him for three years, " I 
would rather lose my empire to you than to any one 
else." 

Richard, however, had many enemies — the Duke of 
Austria was one, the King of France was another. On 
his voyage homeward, his vessel was wrecked on the coast 
of Istria. 10 Thence he set out with a page as his only 
companion, and disguise as his only defence. At one 
time, he was a knight-templar ; n at another, a merchant. 
But he was not cautious enough. When passing through 
an Austrian village, he sent his page to buy some trifles 
in a shop. The boy wore very fine gloves, and had a 
purse well filled with money. This made the people 
wonder, and the story reached the ears of the duke. 

Next day, a band of soldiers seized Richard ; and 
months of imprisonment passed slowly in a tower 
perched on one of the Tyrolese 12 mountains. But help 
came in a strange way. On the evening of a long 
and wean?" day, when the light was as dull as his 
spirits, he heard the tones of a harp below his turret 



4 8 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

window. Some one began to sing. With a cry of 
delight, the king rose from his seat. That was the 
voice of Blondel, his minstrel ; that was the song they 
had sung together in Palestine. 13 There was a pause at 
the end of the first verse. The king, standing behind 
his barred window, sang the rest. The two friends were 
afraid to speak, but Blondel returned to England, and 
in a short time a ransom gave Kichard his liberty. 

Troubles in England and war abroad again roused 
him to action. His old enemy, the King of France, 
had invaded Normandy. To defend his capital, Rouen, 
Richard built a fortress on the river Seine. 14 

" I will take it, though its walls be of iron," said 
Philip. 

" I would hold it, were the walls of butter," Richard 
replied. 

He wanted money to carry on the war ; but, before 
asking his people in England, as he usually did, to 
supply his needs, he heard of a treasure in the neighbour- 
hood. Twelve knights of gold, it was said, had been 
found buried in the fields of the Lord of Chaluz. 15 

Richard said the treasure was his. " You may have 
the half, but not the whole," the Lord of Chaluz replied. 

Burning with rage, Richard attacked his castle. During 
the contest, an archer, called Bertrand de Jourdon, took 
aim at the king, and lodged an arrow in his shoulder. 
Richard's army stormed the place, and hanged every 
inmate in it except de Jourdon, whom they brought to 
the dying king. 

" What have I done to thee," the king asked, " that 
thou shouldst take my life ? " 

" What hast thou done ? " replied Bertrand. " Thou 
hast killed mv father and mv two brothers with thine 



THE CRUSADER KING. 



49 



own hand. I have killed thee, and the world is rid of 
a tyrant." 

" I forgive thee, boy," said the dying king. " Give 
him some money," he added to his attendants, " and let 
him go." The men, however, paid no heed to his com- 
mands, and the brave youth was cruelly put to death. 
Before the day ended, the proud spirit of the great 
Crusader had passed away. 



1. Lion-heart, Cceur de Lion, so called from his 

strength and courage. (Reigned 1189-99.) 

2. Acre, a fortified port in the north of Pales- 

tine ; famous for its numerous sieges. 

3. Crusaders, soldiers who fought under the 

banner of the Cross to recover the Holy 
Land from the Saracens. 

4. Saladin, the brave Sultan of the Saracens. 

His empire extended from Egypt to the 
Euphrates. 

5. Ascaion, a seaport of Palestine, 45 miles 

south-west of Jerusalem. 

6. Jaffa, now called Joppa, the sea-port of 

Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the capital of 
the Holy Land. To gain possession of this 
city was the great object of the Crusades. 

7. Saracens, at first the name of a single tribe 

between the Euphrates and Tigris : it was 
afterwards applied to all Arabs who be- 
came followers of Mahomet. 



8. Cyprian, from Cyprus, an island in the east 

of the Mediterranean. 

9. Truce, an agreement to stop fighting for a 

time. 

10. Istria, a peninsula in the north-east corner 

of the Adriatic ; it now belongs to Austria. 

11. Knight - Templar. These knights were a 

body of military monks, established to 
protect pilgrims going to the Holy Land, 
and to wrest the Temple from the Saracens. 

12. Tyrolese. The Tyrol is an Alpine province 

of Austria ; it borders on Switzerland and 
Italy. 

13. Palestine, the Greek name for the Holy 

Land ; the word means " Land of the 
Philistines." 

14. Seine, a river in the north of France ; on 

it stands the city of Paris. 

15. Chaluz, near the town of Limoges in 

Limousin, a central province of France. 




CRUSADERS ON THE MARCH. 



So 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



THE CRUSADERS' WAR-SONG. 

CHIEFTAINS, lead on ! our breasts beat high, 

Lead on to Salem's 1 towers ; 
Who would not deem 2 it bliss to die, 

Slain in a cause like ours ? 
The brave who sleep in soil of thine 
Die not entombed, 3 but shrined, O Palestine ! 

Salem ! amidst the fiercest hour, 

The wildest rage of fight, 
Thy name shall lend our falchions 4 power, 

And nerve our hearts with might. 
Envied be those for thee that fall, 
Who find their graves beneath thy sacred wall. 

For them no need that sculptured 5 tomb 

Should chronicle their fame, 
Or pyramid 6 record their doom, 

Or deathless verse their name. 
It is enough that dust of thine 
Should shroud their forms, blessed Palestine ! 

Chieftains, lead on ! our hearts beat high 

For combat's glorious hour ; 
Soon shall the red-cross banner 7 fly 

On Salem's loftiest tower ! 
We burn to struggle in the strife, 
Where hut to die insures eternal life ! 

Mrs. Hemans. 



1. Salem, Jerusalem, the chief city of Palestine ; 

the chief object of the Crusaders was to 
wrest the Holy City from the Saracens. 

2. Deem, consider, think. 

3. Entombed, buried. 

4. Falchions, poetic word for sword. 
6. Sculptured, carved. 



6. The great pyramids of Egypt were built as 

burying-places of the kings. 

7. The Crusaders all h;\d the figure of a cross 

upon their banners, shields, and tunic. 
Each country had a different colour. 
English Crusaders wore a red cross. 

8. Insures, makes sure or certain of. 



w 



KING JOHN AND MAGNA CHARTA. 51 



KING JOHN AND MAGNA CHARTA. 1 

HY should they obey such a king ? the people of 
England asked themselves. He regarded neither 
the laws of the land nor the rules of honour, and cared 
not even for the common duties of life. Mean and 
selfish, he was utterly without love even for his nearest 
relatives. He was his father's favourite child — that 
father's heart he had broken. When his brother was 
in prison, he had seized his lands ; when his nephew 
was in his power, he had drowned him in the river 
Seine. 

In public and in private, King John" was hated. 
He insulted the barons, and paid no heed to their rights. 
He taxed the towns at his will and pleasure. By 
degrees the anger of the people became so great, that a 
leader only was wanting to make it war. 

There was a meeting of the nobles in St. Paul's. 
Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, showed them a copy 
of Henry I.'s charter, 3 which, he said, he had found in 
the chest of a monastery. 4 The king must confirm it. 

Again the barons met at St. Edmondsbury, 5 and 
swore before the high altar that they would enjoy their 
ancient liberties in peace. At Christmas, they came to 
the court in arms, and stated their claims. King John, 
who trusted in evasion and delay, told them that he 
must have time to think and that they might return 
at Easter. The barons understood the answer. When 
they returned, it was with an army led by Eobert Fitz- 
Walter. They entered London early on the first Sun- 
day in June, while the gates were open and the citizens 
in church. 



52 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



The king was then at Odiham in Hampshire with 
;even knights only. This was not the moment to assert 




JOHN SIGNING THE CHARTER. 



his power : he at once agreed to meet the barons at 
Rnnnymede. 

John left Windsor, and at Rnnnymede 6 found the 



KING JOHN AND MAGNA CHARTA. 



53 



nobles, with their men-at-arms marshalled behind them, 
on the Surrey side of the river. 

The meeting took place on an island, in the middle 
of the stream. There was nothing they desired which 
he was not ready to grant. Among other things, they 
demanded that ' no one be unlawfully imprisoned or 
taxed.' The king agreed to everything, and then re- 
ceived the homage of all the barons. Returning to his 
palace at Windsor, he threw himself upon the ground 
in a furious fit of passion. 

" They have made me an under-king with five and 
twenty over-kings," he cried, gnawing sticks and straw 
in his rage. 

Before daylight, he had left Windsor. If no English 
army would obey him, he could hire foreigners to do 
his bidding. He waited in the south of England till 
they came, and at their head he laid waste the country 
from south to north. 

This could not be borne. The barons united their 
forces to oppose him, and invited Louis of France to be 
their king. When he came, John's hired soldiers refused 
to fight, and deserted him in large numbers. Worse still, 
while crossing the Wash, 7 his baggage-train was over- 
taken by the tide, and all the crown jewels and royal 
treasure were swept away. Shortly after, the miserable 
king was seized with fever, and died at Newark-on-Trent. 8 



1. The Great Charter, usually called Magna 

Charta or Carta ; signed June 15, 1215 ; 
was ratified by succeeding kings no less 
than thirty-eight times. 

2. John, King of England, the youngest son of 

Henry II., succeeded his brother Richard in 
1199. The rightful heir was Arthur, son of 
his elder brother Geoffrey. 

3. Henry I.'s Charter, granted on his acces- 

sion. In it, he promised to respect the 
rights of the Church and of the barons, 
and to restore the laws of Ed ard the 
Confessor. 



4. Monastery, a house for monks. The word 

means a place for people to dwell alone. 

5. St. Edmondsbury, in Suffolk, now Bury St. 

Edmunds ; so called from Edmund, King 
of East Anglia, who was martyred here by 
the Danes for refusing to deny Chris- 
tianity. 

6. Runnymede, " the meadow by the stream, a 

narrow strip of meadow on the Surrey side 
of the Thames, two miles east of Staines. 

7. Wash, an inlet on the east coast of England 

noted for its high and swift tides. 

8. Newark-on-Trent, in Nottinghamshire. 



54 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES. 

QUEEN ELEANOK sat in a room of the palace in 
London, with an anxions and expectant 1 air. 

" They tell me she is in great distress," she said to a 
courtier who stood near her, " and that ever since the 
day her ship was captured in the English Channel and 
she was taken prisoner, the girl has drooped and pined. 
An it break the proud spirit of the Lord of Snowdon 2 
and end our war in Wales, the plot was well devised." 3 

At this moment the door opened. The lady, of whom 
the queen spoke, was ushered into the room. Eleanor 
de Montfort was the promised bride of Llewellyn, lord 
of Snowdon, whose greatest fault was that of loving 
liberty too well. For this, she must now endure cap- 
tivity. Llewellyn ruled over a race which had never 
wholly lost its freedom — the northern Welsh had 
never been subdued by Saxon, Dane, or Norman. It 
had been foretold 4 that a Prince of Wales would 
one day rule the whole of Britain. Llewellyn vowed 
that never would he own the King of England as his 
lord. 

But Edward I. was an inexorable 5 foe. His troops 
poured into Wales from all sides ; his fleet sailed along 
the coast. Thus hemmed in, the people were slowly 
starved into submission. 

In the spring-time of the year, the queen was present 
at a wedding held in London. The bridegroom was 
Llewellyn, who had paid homage to the King ; and his 
bride, the fair Eleanor, was a prisoner no longer. 

This was not, however, the end of the war. Like a 
bird that will not stay in its cage when the door is open, 
Llewellyn returned to Wales with his bride, and again 



THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES. 55 

rose in rebellion. He seized the castles of Hawarden, 
Flint, and Rhuddlan, and marched on Chester. 




EDWARD I. AND THE WELSH CHIEFS. 

This time, Edward set mountaineer on mountaineer. 
He brought the hardy Basques 6 from the Pyrenees to 
fight the Welsh. Llewellyn hastened to the south, but 



56 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



while passing alone along the banks of the Wye was 
surprised and slain by an English knight. 7 For a time, 
his brother David fought on, but he was betrayed into 
the hands of the English and cruelly put to death. 

The war being over, Edward received the homage of 
the Welsh chieftains in the castle of Caernarvon. 8 lie 
stood in the great hall, and thus spoke to them. 

" My good friends," he said, " I promise you a prince 
born in Wales, and who cannot speak a word of English." 

The chieftains swore they would willingly serve such 
a prince, thinking he must surely be Welsh. The queen 
then entered, carrying in her arms a baby — Edward, the 
infant son of the king. 

" Here is your prince," said the king, " he was born 
in this castle, and has yet to learn to speak English." 

The chieftains could not but smile at the clever ruse 
and accept the babe as their future king. Ever since 
that day, the eldest son of the English sovereign has been 
called the Prince of Wales. 

Two massive mountains, near the banks of the river 
Ogwen in Caernarvonshire, are called the "Cairns" 9 of 
Llewellyn and David, after the last native princes of 
Wales. Both perished by the hands of the English, and 
their dust has been scattered to the winds ; but these noble 
hills bear witness that their names and deeds are still 
cherished, and will not be forgotten. 



1. Expectant, looking earnestly for. 

2. Snowdon, in Caernarvonshire, 3571 feet high, 

the highest mountain in England and 
Wales. 

3. Devised, planned. 

4. See page 9. 

§. Inexorable, not to be moved by prayer o 
entreaty. 



6. Basques, the descendants of the old inhabi- 

tants of Spain ; probably a Celtic race. 

7. In 1282. 

8. Caernarvon, on the Menai Straits. The 

castle was built by Edward I. to overawe 
the Welsh. 

9. Cairns, Welsh, Carnedd. A cairn is properly 

a heap of stones erected as a monument. 



BRUCE AND BANNOCKBURN. 57 

BRUCE AND BANNOCKBURN. 

OUT of a church in Dumfries 1 a man came hurriedly. 
His face was deadly pale, and he seemed greatly 
moved. 

" What ill fortune pursues you, Bruce ? " cried two 
men, who came quickly forward as if they had been 
waiting for him. 

" I doubt," replied Robert Bruce, " that I have killed 
the Red Comyn." 2 

" You doubt ? " said his friend Kirkpatrick ; "I will 
make sure." 

Kirkpatrick and Lindesay rushed into the church with 
their daggers drawn, and left the Comyn dead before 
the high altar. 

Robert the Bruce had arranged to meet his cousin, 
the Red Comyn, in the Church of the Grey-Friars 3 at 
Dumfries. They had equal claims to the Scottish crown, 
but whether it was rivalry, treachery, or scorn that roused 
their wrath is unknown ; the end alone is certain. 

This deed made Robert Bruce an outlaw. 4 He col- 
lected his friends, and told them his plans. Although 
the old grey stone of Scone 5 was now in Westminster, 
although Wallace 6 had fought in vain at Falkirk and his 
head had been held up to scorn on London Bridge, 
Scotland would yet be free. He was their true king, 
and he would set Edward at defiance. 

In the Abbey of Scone, Robert the Bruce was crowned 
by the Countess of Buchan. 

" Henceforth, thou art Queen of Scotland," he said to 
Mary, his wife, " and I am king." 

" I fear," she said sadly, " we are but playing at being 
king and queen," 



5S STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

If it were play, it was a grim game before the end. 

Edward had conquered Wales. He had, as he believed, 
subdued Scotland also ; it was not likely, therefore, that 
she would regain her freedom without a struggle. 

But Edward was old and worn out. Those who were 
young and strong must now fight for him. He knighted' 
his son Edward and two hundred and seventy vounsr 
esquires. He told them that, after he had taken ven- 
geance on the Bruce, he would fight no more, but would 
end his life in the Holy Land. As he was ill, he sent 
them on in advance to Scotland ; he himself stopped till 
spring in Cumberland. 

While he lay there in suffering, Bruce was wandering 
among the Highland mountains. His army had been 
surprised and defeated at Methven. 8 Then he and a 
few brave friends had to endure great hardships. 
Driven from place to place, they found no corner of 
the land safe for them. As winter drew on, Bruce 
was forced to part from his wife. Three of his brothers 
were captured and slain; almost alone, he continued 
the hard struggle for life and liberty. For some time, 
he hid in the Island of Rathlin, off the north coast of 
Ireland. When he returned to Scotland, John of Lorn* 
sent a pack of bloodhounds on his track ; but, in spite 
of all, Bruce was still free. 

The summer of 1307 had come, and King Edward 
said he would ride at the head of his arm}'. It was a 
vain effort. He was too ill to travel two miles a day, 
and died when he reached Burgh-on-Sands. 10 

On his deathbed, this iron-hearted king made his son 
promise to leave his bones unburied till Scotland was 
subdued. But his son paid little heed to his command. 
Loving pleasure more than power, he disbanded the army 



BRUCE AND BANNOCKP.ITPvN. 



59 




BRUCE AT BANNOCKBURN, 



60 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

and returned to London. His spirit was roused, how- 
ever, by the news that town after town had fallen into 
the hands of Bruce. Stirling Castle alone remained to 
the English ; and, if it were not relieved before mid- 
summer, it also would be lost. 

When Eobert Bruce heard that Edward II. was 
mustering an army, the like of which had never yet 
been seen in Scotland, he prepared to meet it as best 
he could. The enemy's cavalry, he knew, was superior to 
his own ; their archers excelled those of any other nation. 
Bruce relied on caution, skill, and courage. 

He drew up his troops on a slope near Stirling u — the 
right wing protected by the river Bannock, the left 
extending towards Stirling. In the marshy plain on 
the left he caused pits to be dug, which he covered 
with brushwood and sod. When all was complete, he 
awaited the enemy. 

On the 23d of June, the English were seen drawing 
near to Stirling. As they advanced, their pennons 12 
flying, their armour glittering in the sun, it seemed as 
if the Scots would be crushed by mere numbers. 

That evening Bruce, armed with only a battleaxe, 
rode out towards the enemy on a small pony. A 
knight 13 galloped forward to attack him. Bruce quickly 
swerved aside, and with one blow of his battleaxe killed 
him. 

Early the next morning, the battle began. Ed- 
ward's archers sent a shower of arrows into the Scottish 
ranks. Bruce commanded his men-at-arms to charge 
them. The English cavalry, coming to the rescue, fell 
into the pits, where their horses, loaded with heavy 
armour, floundered helplessly : the whole army was soon 
thrown into disorder. 



THE THREE FEATHERS. 



To add to the confusion, there appeared, on the brow 
of the hill behind, a great number of the Scottish camp- 
followers. In the distance, they looked like a second 
army. Panic-struck, 14 the English turned and fled. 

Edward rode off; and never rested till he reached 
Dunbar, 15 whence he escaped in a small fishing boat. 

From that day, the wanderings and perils of Robert 
Bruce were at an end. He had gained a complete 
victory, and had secured the liberty of his country. 



1. Dumfries, a town in the south-west of Scot- 

land, on the left bank of the Nith. 

2. Bruce and Comyn, rivals for the Scottish 

throne. 

3. Grey-Friars. The various orders of friars 

wore dresses of different colours. 

4. Outlaw, one put out of the protection of the 

law. 

5. Scone, on the Tay, in Perthshire. The kings 

of Scotland were crowned in its abbey. 
The coronation-stone was removed to 
Westminster by Edward I. in 1296. 

6. Wallace, the hero of Scotland. Edward I. 

had conquered the whole of Scotland. 
After the battle of Dunbar, Wallace was 
the first to rise against the English. 



7. Knighted. In feudal times yo;ing noble. 

men, and even princes, had first to serve 
as pages ; then they became esquires ; and 
last of all, when they proved themselves 
worthy, they were made knights. 

8. Methven, near Perth. 

9. Lorn, a district in the north of Argyleshire. 

10. Burgh-on-Sands, four miles north-west of 

Carlisle. 

11. Stirling, on the Forth. The castle is one of 

the strongest in Scotland. 

12. Pennon, a small flag. 

13. Named Henry de Bohun. 

14. Panic-struck, seized with great fear. 

15. Dunbar, on the east coast of Haddington. 



THE THREE FEATHERS. 

" '"PAKE me where I can strike one blow at the foe," 
JL said the brave old King of Bohemia. 1 
A knight rode on each side of him ; they took his 
bridle-reins, and tied them to their own, for the king 
was blind. Then the three men rode into the battle. 



In the grey of evening, a king and his son walked 
over the battlefield. The young man was dressed in 
black armour. They talked, as they went, of the fortunes 
of the day. 



62 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



" Metliouglit at the outset the Genoese 2 would prove 
too strong for our archers," said the king. 




JOHN OF BOHEMIA AT UKECY. 



" And yet the cowards turned and fled at the first 
shower of arrows," replied the Black Prince. 3 

" 'Twas a fierce conflict," the king continued, " ten 
thousand of our men against a hundred thousand. Our 



THE THREE FEATHERS. 



63 



archers have done well and nobly. You too, my son, 
did acquit yourself gallantly this day. They told me 
you were hard pressed, but I would not they should say 
the prince sought help while he could wield his sword. 
The honour of the day is yours, and bravely have you 
won your spurs." 4 

As they spoke, they came to a spot where three men 
were lying dead. Their horses were stretched on the 
ground beside them, their reins tied together. 

One of the men had a crown on his aged head. 

His banner had fallen to the ground. On it was a 
picture of three ostrich feathers ; 
and underneath, half - hid by 
earth, were the words in Ger- 
" Erfj ©fen," " I serve," 



man, 

The prince stooped and lifted 
the banner. 

" 'Tis the old King of Bohe- 
mia," said he sadly. " See how 
our men lie strewn around him. 
He has not died without glory." 

" My son," said the king, 
taking the banner from the prince, " let his badge and 
motto be your own, in memory of this day." 

" I thank your Majesty," the prince replied. " It 
will remind me that ' I serve ' my king and country." 




THE PRINCE OF WALES S THREE 
FEATHERS. 



Whilst King Edward III. and his son were thus 
engaged, a sadder sight was seen in another part of 
France. 

The warder of La Bruyes was sitting drowsily at his 
post, when he was roused by the sound of loud knocking 
at the castle gate. 



64 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

" Who goes there ? " he called angrily from the walls. 

" Open quickly," was the reply ; " it is the fortune of 
France." 

The bridge was lowered, and through the open gate 
rode six knights, jaded and travel-stained; Philip of 
Valois 5 was at their head. When they had dismounted 
in the courtyard, the knights followed him in silence 
through the doorway into the castle. The French king 
might well be weary and cast down, for that day he had 
left the flower of his army dead on the field of Crecy. 6 

1. Bohemia, a province in the north-west of 4. Won your spurs, gained the rank of knight- 

Austria, hood. When a man was knighted, he re- 

2. Genoese, crossbow-men from Genoa, a famous ceived a pair of gilt spurs. 



port on the coast of Italy. 
Black Prince, so called from the colour of 
the armour which he wore at Crecy, or 
from the terror of his name. 



5. Valois, pronounced Val-wa. 
15. Crecy, in Picardy, in the north-east of 
Fiance. 



THE FIELD OF AGINCOURT. 

" LJOW many are there, David? Come, tell me, are 
JLJL our foes too strong for us ? " 1 
" My lord," said the Welshman, with a humorous 
twinkle in his eyes, " their numbers are complete. 
There are enough to be killed, enough to be made 
prisoners, and enough to run away. As I rode near 
the camp, I saw some of the varlets 2 dressed in armour 
and seated on horseback, as if they feared the mud 
would rob them of their valour if they were to dis- 
mount." 

" And our men, how do they pass the night ? " 
" By the light of the watchfires, our soldiers mend 
their armour. Some of them sharpen their swords, 
and a few confess their sins to the priests. They swear 



THE FIELD OF AGINCOURT. 




(H. I.) 



HENRY V. AT AGINCOURT. 



66 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

they will not leave the battlefield to-morrow, till they 
have driven every Frenchman from it." 

" I would," said a knight, " that some of the stout 
men-at-arms now idle in England were present to 
aid us." 

" No," answered King Henry, " I would not, by our 
Lady, that another man were here. If God give the 
victory to the few, theirs will be the greater honour." 

So they talked, and made ready for battle ; wearied 
as they were, not many hours that night were lost in 
sleep. At daybreak, the English army was drawn up in 
three divisions on the field of Agincourt. 3 

The French soldiers looked with scorn at Henry's 
archers, who had " bared neck and arm to give free 
play to the crooked stick and the grey goose quill." 4 
The pointed stake, which each man carried and planted 
in the ground before him, would, they were certain, 
prove but a poor defence against their men-at-arms and 
heavy cavalry. 

It was these archers who began the fray. With a 
cry for " England, St. George, 5 and Harry," they let fly 
their arrows. 

The French struggled to advance. - So closely were 
they packed together, that they could scarcely wield 
their arms ; so swampy was the ground on which they 
stood, that they could barely stir. The horses reared, 
plunged, and sank in the clay ; the arrows stuck in their 
sides, and they became furious. Only about a hundred 
and twenty of them, spurred on by their riders, ever 
reached the enemy's ranks. Maddened by the arrows, 
the rest turned and rushed back. 

Now was the time for the English to use their battle- 
axes, They fought their way through the first division 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 



67 



and attacked the second. After that, the French had 
only one moment of hope. It was when they saw the 
Duke of Alencon 6 swing his sword above the head of 
the English king ; but the next moment the Duke 
had fallen, and the third division fled without striking a 
blow. 

" They run ! they run ! " cried the Duke of Brabant/ 
as he galloped to the front. He wore no armour ; and, 
banner in hand, he rode into the English ranks and 
was slain. 

The battle was over, and Henry had won a great vic- 
tory. Sixteen hundred of his men had perished, but 
eleven thousand French lay dead upon the field. 



Invincible, not to be overcome. 

Varlets, anciently meant a kniglit's fol- 
lowers ; here used ironically. 

Agincourt, in the north of France, twenty 
miles north of Crecy, thirty miles south- 
east of Boulogne. The battle was fought 
in the year 1415. 



4. Crooked-stick and grey goose quill, bow and 

arrow. 

5. St. George, the patron saint of England. 

6. Alencon, a town in France, 100 miles west of 

Paris. 

7. Brabant, one of the ancient divisions of the 

Netherlands. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 

IN a village 1 on the borders of Lorraine and Champagne, 
Joan of Arc was born. She was a tender-hearted 
girl, kind to bird and beast, gentle to the sick and sad, 
and helpful in her home. Her country, then at war with 
England, was desolated, and her heart was full of pity 
for it. When wounded soldiers came to the village, she 
gave up her room to them and nursed them. As she 
heard them speak of the suffering in the towns, of the 
misery in the villages, of the hopeless condition of the 
Dauphin 2 Charles, she was deeply moved. She had 
heard that a maid of Lorraine should save the land, 



68 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY, 

God, she thought, would help her to do this. One 
day, as she believed, St. Michael appeared to her in a 
vision, and bade her save the king and his people. 
" There is pity in heaven," she heard him say, " for 
France." 

Many hours had Joan passed dreaming in the forest 
of the Vosges. 3 These days were gone. She would 
weep no more at the thought of her own weakness. 
Heaven had given her this work to do. Her father 
might threaten to kill her if she went ; and the priests, 
the soldiers, every friend she had, might oppose her as 
they pleased. 

" I must go to the king," was her answer to them all. 

At length, an officer agreed to guide her to the 
Dauphin. 

Charles was at Chinon 4 when Joan and the old man 
arrived. The hall in which he stood amidst his knights 
was brilliantly lighted. Joan entered, paused for a 
moment, then walked to where the Dauphin sat, and 
bent before him. 

" Gentle prince," she said to him, " I am Joan the 
maid, sent by God to aid you and the kingdom, and 
to tell you that you will be crowned in the city of 
Eheims." 

The Dauphin eagerly listened to her. Having tried 
every plan he could think of without success, he 
thought she might help him. With the English before 
Orleans 5 and famine within it, he could do nothing ; she, 
perhaps, might save the city. 

Then it was that the English soldiers saw a strange 
sight. A girl in armour appeared before the walls of 
Orleans, raised the downcast spirits of the French, and 
spurred them to greater efforts, 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 



69 



" What chance have we," said the English, " when 
a witch is on the other side ? " They lost heart ; 
and Suffolk, their commander, raised the siege and 




JOAN OF AKC. 



retired. The presence of the maid on her white 
charger, 6 with the banner of France above her, seemed 
to make their efforts of no avail. 



7o 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



kw Forward, country men ! " was lier constant cry. 
" Fear nothing, for God lias given them into our 
hands ! " And victory followed where she led. 

All that she had longed for had come to pass when 
she stood beside the king in the cathedral of Rheims ' 
and saw him crowned. 

" Now," she said, " let me return home, for my 
mission is ended." 

But the king wished her to remain with the army, 
and Joan was never again in her home. 

From this time she was greatly changed. It was as 
if the high courage of the soldier had gone and left her 
with the listless spirit of a dreamer. 

She was often defeated now, and early in the next 
year she fell into the hands of the English. They tried 
her as a witch, and gave her a paper containing a con- 
fession that she had been aided by evil powers. Joan 
could neither read nor write, so she put a cross at the 
end as her mark. With such simplicity, she signed away 
her life. 

The market-place of Rouen 8 was crowded with her 
enemies when she was burnt ; 9 but, even amongst them, 
there was some pity for her in that last sad hour. One 
of her judges was the Cardinal Beaufort. As he looked 
at her innocent face and heard her pray to Heaven from 
amidst the flames, he rose and left the place, weeping 
bitterly. When her prayer was ended, her spirit followed 
where it went. 



1. Domremy, now called Domremy la Pucelle, 

"the village of the Maid." 
'2. Dauphin, title given to the heir-apparent of 

the French crown ; cf. the title, Prince of 

Wales. 

3. Vosges, a range of mountains between Alsace 

and Lorraine. 

4. Chinon, on the river Vienne, near its junction 

with the Loire. 



5. Orleans, an important city on the Loire, 

seventy-five miles south-west of Paris. 

6. Charger, war-horse. 

7. Rheims, in Champagne, ninety miles north- 

east of Paris. Here, nearly all the kings 
of France were crowned. 

8. Rouen, capital of Normandy, on the right bank 

of the Seine, eighty-five miles from Paris. 

9. In 1431. 



A BRAVE QUEEN. 71 




TEMPLE GARDENS. 



A BRAVE QUEEN. 



ONE evening*, a party of noblemen were walking 
through the Temple 1 gardens in London. They 
began to talk about public affairs. 

One of them said that it would be a blessing for 
the country if the Duke of York were king ; that, after 
all, he had, through his mother, a better right to the 
throne than Henry VI. 

Another declared that though the king had lost his 
wits, and his son Edward was a mere baby, he would not 
desert them. 

The last speaker was, at the moment, passing a rose- 
bush. He plucked a red rose and put it in his hat, 
saying he would always wear it as the badge of the 
royal Lancasters. Even if it came ■ to open war, he 
added, he would willingly fight for King Henry, and, if 
need be, die for him. One or two of his companions 
followed his example. 



72 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



The others said that, if so, the white rose should be 
the sign of the House of York, and all the world 
might see them wear it. 

From this incident the wars, which began a few years 
later and lasted for thirty years, were called the " Wars of 
the Hoses" On one side, at the outset, was the Duke of 

_ York ; on the other, 
Queen Margaret of An- 
jou, 2 the wife of Henry 
VI., who fought for her 
gentle husband and 
young son. 

The queen gained 
few victories, but suf- 
fered many defeats; still 
she fought on. After 
the battle of Hexham, 3 
her husband was taken 
prisoner and carried to 
the Tower. Then a 
strange adventure be- 
fell her. 

Having escaped with 
her son and a party of 
knights, they took re- 
fuge in the forest of Hexham — at that time a place 
which few dared to cross without a strong escort. The 
queen was not without anxiety, for, as she afterwards 
confessed, " she fancied every tree she saw was a man 
with a naked sword in his hand." 

From behind a group of these trees, a band of robbers 
suddenly appeared. After rudely seizing the queen's 
rings and necklace, they turned to attack her followers. 




QUEEN MARGARET AND THE ROBBER. 



A BRAVE QUEEN. 



73 



The queen caught her boy's hand and hurried from the 
spot, only to run into another danger. 

She had pushed her way through a dense part of the 
wood into an open space, when she saw a tall man 
coming towards her. Here was another outlaw. With 
the courage of distress, the queen cried to him, " Friend, 
will you not save the son of your king ? " 

It was well for her that the man was an old Lancas- 
trian soldier. He took the boy in his arms, and, followed by 
the queen, bore him to his cave on the banks of a river. 
There his wife tended them and made them rest. " I 
have lost much," said the queen, " but most of all do I 
regret that I have lost the power to reward you." 

But all the queen's efforts could not save her son. 
After many changes of fortune, he was taken prisoner 
in the battle of Tewkesbury. 4 

" How dared you," said King Edward, when he was 
brought to his tent, " how dared you take up arms 
against your king ? " 

" I fought for my father," the brave prince replied, 
" whose crown I shall one day wear." 

" That day shall never come," cried King Edward ; 
and, as if in answer to his angry glance, his brothers, 
Clarence and Gloucester, fell upon the Prince, and 
Queen Margaret was left childless. 



1. Temple, a house in London once occupied by 

the Knight-Templars. 

2. Anjou, one of the old provinces of France ; 

the home of the Plantagenets. 



3. Hexham, on the Tyne, in Northumberland. 

4. Tewkesbury, on the Avon, in Gloucestershire, 

near its junction with the Severn. The 
battle was fought in 1471. 



74 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



THE FIRST ENGLISH PRINTER. 

NEAR Westminster Abbey, in the year 1475, there 
stood a little chapel and a few houses. Those 
who lived close by were never tired of watching the 
figures that entered or left the buildings. Now it 
was a group of people poorly clad, bent and wasted 
by age and poverty. These were the old folk, the 
neighbours said, who had the good luck to receive 
alms from the church. Now it was a priest in black 
cassock 1 — that was a prayer-book, they were certain, 
which he held in his hand as he came out. Then 
there would follow a young scholar, whose coat was 
threadbare ; and after him, a knight in sable mantle. 
"Master Caxton," said the neighbours, "need not hang 
out his red pole as a sign any longer, for people know 
how to find their way to him and his printing-press 
without it." 

Two years before, William Caxton returned with his 
printing-press from Germany. He had been for five- 
and-twenty years in Flanders, where he was first gover- 
nor of the English Guild of Merchant Adventurers 2 before 
he became copyist to. the Duchess of Burgundy. 3 Such 
work tired him soon. " For as much as in the writing," 
he said, " my pen is worn, my hand weary, and my- eyes 
dimmed with overmuch looking on white paper." 

Colard Mansion, who lived at Bruges, 4 had learnt 
the new art of printing ; why should not he learn 
it also ? He set to work with a will, and after much 
labour succeeded in printing the "Tales of Troye," 
explaining to his readers, in words that now sound 
strangely, " This book is not written with pen and ink 



THE FIRST ENGLISH PRINTER. 75 

as other books be, for all the books of this story here 




CAXTON AND EDWARD IV. 

emprynted as ye see were begun in one day and also 
finished in one day." 



7 6 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



Caxton translated many of the books which he printed. 
If he felt much interested in any work, he began at 
once to turn it into English. One evening he was 
seated in his study, when " to my hand," he says, " there 
came a little book in French, which late was translated 
out of Latin by some noble clerk 5 in France. I con- 
cluded to translate it into English, and forthwith took 
a pen and ink, and wrote a leaf or twain." 

His friends often came to cheer him. Many of the 
nobles were glad to buy his books, and to urge him 
on when he lost heart. On one occasion, the Earl of 
Arundel 6 coaxed him, as one might coax a child, by a 
promise of a yearly present of a doe in summer and a 
buck in winter, if he would end the " Golden Legend." 7 
" Fain would I please every man," wrote Oaxton, and 
went on patiently, till he had finished that and many 
another book. Edward IV. and his queen also took an 
interest in his work and came to see him. 

Years passed away, and in time the Almonry 8 of 
Westminster and all who dwelt there passed away also ; 
but the little printing-press set up there by Caxton, 
and the work done by him, remain amongst the most 
memorable facts of a memorable century. 



1. Cassock, the dress of a priest. 

2. Guild of Merchant Adventurers, a famous 

company of traders. 
o. Burgundy, a large province in the east of 
France. 

4. Bruges, a city in Flanders : so called from 

the numerous bridges which cross its 
many canals. 

5. Clerk, clergyman or priest, a scholar. 



6. Arundel, on river Arun, in Sussex. 

7. Golden Legend, a Latin book giving an ac- 

count of the lives of our Lord, the Virgin 
Mary, and many saints. Caxton says that 
the hook is so named because "like as 
passeth gold in value all other metals, so 
this Legend exceedeth all other books." 

8. Almonry, the place where alms were given 

out. 




THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER. 77 



THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER. 

EDWARD V. was a boy of twelve when his father died. 
He was, at the time, living* with his uncle, Lord 
Rivers, in Ludlow Castle. His father, however, on his 
deathbed, had named Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 
guardian of his two sons, Edward and Richard. 

Gloucester pretended to love the children, and said 
they would be safest in London. He met the young 
king's party with a troop of horse at Stony Stratford ; 1 
and suddenly sent two of the princes' relatives, Earl 
Rivers and Richard Grey, 2 to prison. They were false 
friends, he said, and not to be trusted. 

The Duke rode bareheaded before the young king into 
London ; and, when the crowd shouted, he pointed to 
the little boy beside him, saying that it was to him they 
should do honour. 

The Protector, as the Duke was now called, said that 
the Tower was the best place for the children, and that 
Edward ought to be kept there till he was of age. 

Edward's mother, the widowed queen, did not think 
so. When she heard that her brothers had been impri- 
soned, she was much alarmed. In the middle of the 
night, she left the palace with her youngest boy and 
took refuge in the Sanctuary 3 at Westminster. 

Richard said that the child, never having committed 
a crime, need not be protected by the Church ; he 
wished him to join his brother, and be his playmate in 
the Tower. 

The queen at last consented. She embraced the boy, 
saying, " Farewell, my own sweet son, for God alone 
knoweth when we shall ever kiss one another again," 



7S STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

His uncle kissed him too; and, saying, "Welcome, my 
lord, and that with all my heart," led him to the Tower. 

Several of the Duke's friends hinted that Edward 
was not fit to be king. His uncle, they urged, was, 




THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER. 



in the meantime, the better ruler. Soon after a body 
of prelates, noblemen, and commons went to Baynard 
Castle and offered Richard the crown. After seeming 
to refuse, he accepted it. 

Meanwhile the little princes in the Tower had lost 
their high spirits and no longer cared to play. Some 
one overheard Prince Edward saying softly to himself, 
" I would mine uncle would let me have my life though 
he take my crown," 



CROWNED ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 



79 



One night, as they lay sleeping, their arms round 
each other's neck, two rough men stood beside them. 
The children were young and pretty, and their beauty 
and helplessness might well have touched the hardest 
heart. But the Duke had sent the men there, and 
promised them large sums of money if they would 
obey his orders ; so that night a dark deed was 
wrought in the Tower, and the children never woke 
again. 4 



1. Stony Stratford, in Buckinghamshire, seven 

miles north-west of Buckingham. 

2. Rivers and Grey, the two brothers of the 

Queen-mother, and uncles of the young 
Edward V., whose reign only lasted from 
April 9.h to June 20th, 1483. 



Sanctuary, a place of refuge where fugitives 
were safe from the law. 

Two skeletons, supposed to be those of 
Edward V. and his brother, were found 
in the White Tower in 1674, and were in- 
terred in Westminster Abbey. 



CROWNED ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 

YEAK had hardly passed 
away, when the widowed 
queen of Edward IV. and 
her daughter, Elizabeth, 
were invited by King 
Richard III. to pay a 
visit to the court. It was 
hinted that the princess 
might marry Richard's 
son. 

The queen refused to 
go. She had not yet for- 
gotten the fate of her 
boys. Nothing daunted, 

the king, on the death of his son, proposed to marry 

Elizabeth himself. 

In great distress of mind, the princess sent for Lord 

Stanley, who came and found her alone. She told him 




HENRY VII. 



80 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

of the king's offer — an offer made after he had murdered 
many of her dearest friends. She urged him to invite 
his stepson, Henry, 1 Earl of Richmond, who was then in 
France, to return to England and claim the crown. 

Lord Stanley was. silent, but at length agreed. The 
project, he said, was hopeful, and he would write to his 
son before the day was over ; " and yet," he added with 
a kindly smile, " I am but a poor writer." 

" Then I shall write myself," said the princess, " not 
only to Richmond, but, with your help, to his friends in 
England." 

In her letter to the Earl, Elizabeth promised that, if 
he gained the day, he also should have her as his wife, 
and thus end for ever the " Wars of the Roses." 

Henry resolved to run the risk. With a small force of 
five thousand men, he landed at Milford Haven, 2 in South 
Wales, and raised the Red Dragon, the old banner of the 
Cambrians. The Welsh gathered round it with a full 
belief that they would now regain their freedom. 

The Earl met Richard's army upon Bosworth 3 field. 
" There," says an old historian, " was fought a sharp 
battle, and sharper would it have been if the king's 
party had been fast 4 to him ; but many on the field 
refused him, and rode over to the other party, and some 
stood hovering afar off till they saw to which party the 
victory should fall." 

Lord Stanley, with three thousand men, was amongst 
those who went over to Henry at the outset, and gave 
him the victory. Seeing his line thinned by desertion, 
Richard made a furious charge. He caught sight of his 
rival, and, shouting " Treason ! treason ! " cut his way 
with reckless courage to the spot where Henry stood. 
He killed the standard-bearer, unhorsed Sir John Cheney, 



CROWNED ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 81 



CROWNED ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 

(H. I.) 



S2 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



and was about to attack the Earl of Kichmond, when he 
was overpowered and killed. 

No sooner was he dead than his soldiers hailed 
the victor, shouting, " Long live King Harry ! " His 
crown, which was found on the battlefield, was placed 
on the head of Henry, who then entered Leicester in 
triumph. 

A year after this, when Henry VII. was married to 
Elizabeth, the wedding guests wore white and red roses 
tied together ; for the long and terrible Wars of the 
Roses were now at an end. 



1. Henry claimed the throne through his 
mother, Margaret Beaufort, the great 
grand-daughter of John of Gaunt, fourth 
son of Edward III. He reigned from 1485- 
1509. 



2. Milford Haven, a splendid natural harbour 

on the coast of Pembrokeshire. 

3. Bosworth, now Market Bosworth, in the west 

of Leicestershire. 

4. Fast, true, faithful. 



TWO QUEENS. 

HE day that Elizabeth 
was proclaimed queen, the 
church-bells of England 
rang peals of joy ; in the 
streets, tables were set up, 
round which the people 
feasted and made merry ; 
and at night, bonfires 
blazed in every corner of 
the city. 

The day of her corona- 
tion was another holiday. 
A great throng went with 
the queen to Westminster 
Abbey. 1 Behind her chariot rode a train of ladies, 
and little children met her with flowers in their 




ELIZABETH. 



TWO QUEENS. 83 

hands. She answered the people's shouts with smiles, 
and said kindly, " Thank you, good people ; be well 
assured I shall stand your good friend." 

The queen was fond of praise. In spite of a strong 
will and a clear head, she still liked to be told that she 
rode like Alexander, 2 hunted like Diana, 3 and walked 
like Venus. 4 A foreign ambassador 5 must see her 
dance before he heard her argue ; a courtier must tell 
her that she was more beautiful than the fairest of 
created beings, if he hoped to be advanced. 

She was also fond of luxury and splendour, and her 
nobles often delighted her with brilliant shows and costly 
banquets. 6 

One of the grandest of these was on a visit she paid 
to the Earl of Leicester, at Kenilworth. 7 

For days before she arrived, the roads leading to the 
castle were crowded by minstrels, jesters, showmen, and 
country-folk, who jostled one another, or stood aside to 
let the droves of sheep and bullocks pass or to gaze at 
the loaded waggons — all on their way to the palace of 
princely pleasure. 

When they reached the end of their journey, they 
thronged the ground without the castle gates to await 
the queen's coming. Late one evening, they heard the 
merry ringing of the castle-bell. " The Queen ! the 
Queen ! Silence, and stand fast," cried one of the Earl's 
retainers ; 8 and every face was turned towards the road 
which led from Warwick. 

At the head of a train of knights and ladies, the 
queen rode on a milk-white horse. The gleams of two 
hundred torches, held by as many horsemen, made a 
bright circle of light round her person, and shone on 
the jewels which glittered on her dress. 



84 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

The porter, who threw wide the gates of the castle, 
was a giant whose dress of brilliant scarlet was partly 
hidden by a cloak of bear-skin. This ' Hercules ' 10 
handed her the keys of Kenilworth. ' King Arthur ' n 
and his knights, armed with clubs and battle-axes, 
greeted her from the walls. She had to pause upon 
the bridge which crossed the castle-moat to receive 
a welcome from the ' Lady of the Lake,' who, dressed in 
beautiful robes and crowned with myrtle, greeted her from 
her home amongst her sister mermaids. 12 At every turn, 
a heathen god or hero met her to repeat the welcome ; 
until, at length, she was seated on a throne which had 
been raised in her honour in the great hall of Kenilworth. 
This evening was followed by days of pleasure. At 
one time, she watched a tournament u in the tilt-yard 
of the castle ; at another, she was foremost in the chase. 14 
So Elizabeth enjoyed life. 

There was one castle, however, which the queen never 

visited. In it, Mary, Queen 
of Scots, had now passed 
eighteen years in sad cap- 
tivity. 

The two queens had always 
been rivals. Queen Mary 
believed, with every Roman 
Catholic in Europe, that 
she was the rightful Queen 
of England; Elizabeth, of 
course, was roused to anger 
queen mary. by such a claim. When she 

was driven from Scotland, Queen Maiy, with a strange 
blindness, flew to England for refuge and was put in 
prison by Elizabeth. 




TWO QUEENS. 



ss 



For eighteen years, she was kept in dreary doubt as 
to her fate, till at the end of that time she was brought 
to trial in Fotheringay Castle. 15 She was accused of 
having murdered her husband 16 and of plotting against 
the life of Elizabeth. She denied both charges ; but, in 
truth, her sentence had been passed before her trial. 

When the Earl of Shrewsbury read to her the order 
for her execution, she asked him if her only son, the 
King of Scotland, 17 had forgotten her. " How soon, 
then, must I suffer death ? " " To-morrow," was the 
answer. And in the dim light of a February morning, 
Mary, Queen of Scots, calmly met her cruel death. 18 



Westminster Abbey, in London. Since the 
time of Edward the Confessor most of the 
English sovereigns have been crowned 
hi re. 

Alexander, surnamed the Great, King of 
Macedonia ; one of the greatest conquerors 
the world has seen ; he rode on a famous 
charger called Bucephalus. 

Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting. 

Venus, the Roman goddess of love and 
beauty. 

Ambassador, one who represents a king at a 
foreign court. 

Banquets, great feasts. 

Kenilworth, in Warwickshire, now in ruins ; 
the castle was one of the finest in Ens- 
land. 

Retainers, followers. 

Train, a precession of people on horsehnck. 



10. Hercules, a Greek hero ; worshipped as the 

god of strength. 

11. Arthur, a famous British king, who fought 

against the Saxons. He established an 
order of knights, called the Knights of the 
Round Table. 

12. Mermaids, i.e., sea-maids; these were fabled 

beings, half-human and half-fish. 

13. Tournament, a martial sport in which armed 

knights publicly contested to prove their 
courage and skill. 

14. Chase, hunting. 

15. Fotheringay Castle, in Northamptonshire. 

16. Henry, Lord Darnley. The house in Edin- 

burgh where he lay ill was blown up with 
gunpowder. 

17. James VI. of Scotland, who succeeded Eliza- 

beth as James I. of England, 

18. A.D. 1587. 




HOLYROOD PALACE, EDINBURGH. WHERE Ql'EEN MARV LIVED. 



S6 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY 




ELIZABETH AT TILBURY. 



THE ARMADA. 



PHILIP of Spain, at that time the richest and most 
powerful king in Europe, wished to add England 
to his vast empire. He fitted out a fleet of a hundred 
and thirty large ships, manned by eight thousand sea- 
men and galley-slaves, and carrying twenty thousand 
troops. 

The Invincible 1 Armada, 2 as it was called, left Lisbon 
on the 29th of May, 1588, intending to sail to Calais, 3 
to be joined there by troops from the Netherlands 4 under 
the Duke of Parma. 



THE ARMADA. Sy 

The English navy consisted of only eighty vessels, 
but the merchants, townsfolk, and noblemen of England 
gladly lent their ships to the queen. She, on her part, 
did her utmost to stir up her people. To the troops, 
who were drawn up at Tilbury, 5 she said — " I am come 
amongst you to live or die with you, to lay down my 
crown and my blood, even in the dust, for my God and 
my people. I know I have but the body of a weak 
and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and 
of a king of England." 

She ordered beacons to be set on every hilltop and 
kindled when the Armada came in sight, and thus to 
flash the news over the whole country. 

On Friday, the 19th of July, some men saw the 
Spanish fleet off Lizard Point. 6 That night, sixty Eng- 
lish ships left Plymouth ; 7 and, by the following after- 
noon, they had come within sight of the enemy. 

The Armada was sailing in the form of a vast cre- 
scent, the bright flags of the ships floating gaily in the 
air. The galleons, 8 however, were large and unwieldy ; 
the light and handy English vessels sailed in and out, 
tormenting them like hornets. 

Next day, they followed the Armada, as it moved 
slowly up the channel, and kept up a running fight — 
boats and ships pouring out of Plymouth to lend their 
aid. Before night, a disabled galleon struck to Drake 9 
in the " Revenge." The Spaniards had not as yet re- 
turned a single blow. 

On the 27th, the Armada came to anchor before 
Calais. The second night after, eight fire-ships 10 bore 
down upon them. The Spaniards well knew the havoc 
these terrible fire-ships could do ; as they floated nearer 
and nearer, panic seized both seaman and soldier ; and, 



ss 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY 



with a shout, " the fire-ships of Antwerp/' they cut their 
cables and fell into confusion. 

The following day, the Spanish vessels tried to come 
to closer quarters, but the English easily avoided them. 

The Spaniards had by this time suffered fearful loss. 
Not one English ship was much damaged, the shots 




THE ARMADA. 



from the lofty Spanish galleons had passed over them ; 
scarcely a hundred Englishmen were killed. 

The Spanish ships, on the contrary, were riddled. 
Between four and five thousand of the soldiers were 
dead, and a high wind was driving the vessels towards 
the shore. Such was the panic that fifty of the Spanish 
men-of-war fled before thirteen English ships, although 
the latter had not a single keg of powder or a case of 
shot left. 



QUEEN AND COURTIER 



89 



At last, the Spaniards were left to the mercy of the 
storm. The vessels were driven northward ; some were 
wrecked amongst the Orkneys n and the Western Isles, 12 
or on the coast of Argyle ; others were dashed to pieces 
on the rocky coast of Norway ; and, of all the splendid 
fleet that had sailed from the shores of Spain, only 
fifty- three shattered vessels returned to tell their tale 
of disaster and defeat. 

Such was the fate of the Invincible Armada. 



1. Invincible, not to lie overcome. 

2. Armada, a fleet of armed ships. 

;'.. Calais, nearest French port to England ; 
twenty-one miles from Dover. 

4. Netherlands, i.e., lower lands, Holland and 

Belgium. 

5. Tilbury, in Essex, a fort on the north bank 

of the Thames, defending the month of the 

river. 
C. Lizard Point, in Cornwall, the most southerly 

point of England. 
7. Plymouth, an important naval port on the 

south coast of England ; one of the chief 

stations of the British navy. 



8. Galleon, a huge clumsy vessel, built high up 
at both ends. 

0. Drake, one of the most famous sailors of his 
time. He was the first Englishman who 
made a voyage round the world. 

10. Fire-ships, ships fitted with materials that 

burn readily; they were set on fire, and 
then sent in among the enemy's fleet. 

11. Orkneys, a group of islands off the northern 

coast of Scotland. 

12. Western Isles, the Hebrides, off the west 

coast of Scotland. 



QUEEN AND COURTIER. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH had many favourites, but none 
were so handsome, so high-spirited, so rash and 
gallant as the Earl of Essex. In him, at last, the queen 
had met her match. If she were self-willed, so was he ; 
if she had not the best of tempers, his, at any rate, was 
no better. Like all her loyal subjects, the Earl was eager 
to serve his queen by land or sea : like everybody else, 
he often failed to please her after all. 

One day, when the queen spoke sharply to* him, he 
turned his back upon her with a scornful air. Eliza- 
beth lost her temper at once, and gave him a sharp 
box on the ear, telling him he was a rude and un- 
mannerly boy. Instantly, he laid his hand on his sword ; 
and, crvinsr that he would not have borne such treat- 



90 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

ment from lier father, 1 left her presence. Soon after 
this, her humour 2 changed, and she gave him a ring, 
telling him to send it to her if he were ever in trouble 
or in need of help. 

It seemed as if the day were not far off when he 
would use the gift, for he was ordered to Ireland to 
put down a rebellion. Instead of fighting, Essex signed 
a treaty of peace without consulting the queen. 

Upon receiving some angry letters from her Majesty, 
he rushed back to London to explain his conduct. He 
hurried to the palace, and appeared before Elizabeth, 
travel-stained and uninvited. The queen was offended. 
She banished him from court, and took from him every 
honour she had given him. 

Half-mad with rage, Essex determined to surround 
the palace, and force the queen to dismiss his enemies. 
He failed, and was condemned to death. Elizabeth 
was unwilling to sign the death-warrant, 3 but at last 
did so, and the Earl was beheaded in the Tower. 

No sooner was he dead than the queen repented of 
her haste. Why had he never sent her the ring she 
gave him ? she asked herself again and again. Too 
soon she received a cruel answer. 

The Countess of Nottingham 4 lay dying, and begged 
the queen to come to her. Elizabeth went ; and, as 
she stood beside her bed, the dying woman whispered 
the sad secret. Essex had indeed implored 5 the Countess 
to carry his ring as a last message to the queen, but she 
had kept it by her husband's orders. Elizabeth, when 
she heard this, was as if bereft 6 of reason. She seized 
the poor woman, and shook her till she was breathless, 
calling her every wicked name. " God may forgive you, 
but I never will," she at last exclaimed, and left her. 



QUEEN AND COURTIER. 91 

Returning to the palace and to her own room, she lay 
upon the ground for days, refusing to be comforted. 

Sad though the end of the Earl's life might be, 
it was _ not half so drearv as the queen's old age. 




DEATH OF ELIZABETH. 



Elizabeth would not allow herself to thinly nor would she 
let others say, that her youth had passed away. She 
danced, she hunted, and played as if she were still in her 
teens. " The queen," wrote a courtier, " was never so 



92 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



gallant ' these many years, nor so set upon jollity." She 
must still pay her royal visits, be nattered and amused, 
as if her spirits were as high as ever. 

But at heart, Elizabeth was lonely in her old age, as 
she had been in her youth. The courtiers, statesmen, 
warriors, and explorers, who would have died in her 
service, could not share her gloomy thoughts. By 
degrees, she lost all interest in the play. Her gay 
dresses she no longer cared to wear. A fear of death 
haunted her. At night, she always had a sword beside 
her, which she thrust into the empty air, as if she feared 
an enemy. In time her memory failed ; then she 
refused to rest. Night and day she sat alone, her 
finger on her lips in silence, staring blankly on the 
ground. When Cecil s dared to tell the frail old queen 
that she " must " go to bed. " Must," she cried in a 
burst of rage, " is ' must ' a word to be addressed to 
princes ? Little man, little man ! thy father, if he had 
been alive, durst not have used that word. Thou art so 
bold," she said, with sudden sadness, "because thou 
knowest I shall die." 

They might speak to her now of Mary's son as her 
successor, she only moved her head. On the 24th of 
March, 1603, the end came, and the Great Queen passed 
quietly away. 9 



1. Her father, Henry VIII. 

2. Humour, mood. 

3. Death-warrant, the order for his execution. 

4. Her husband, Howard, Lord Effingham, was 

admiral of the English fleet that opposed 
the Armada. He then, with Essex, took 
part in an attack on Cadiz, after which 
he was made Earl of Nottingham. Essex 
claimed the whole credit, and this made 
Nottingham his enemy. 



5. Implored, begged, prayed. 

6. Bereft, deprived. 

7. Gallant, here means gay, sprightly. 

8. Cecil, the younger son of Lord Burleigh, 

Elizabeth's favourite minister. He was 
retained in office by James I., by whom 
he was created Earl of Salisbury. 

9. In her seventieth year. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



93 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



QUEEN ELIZABETH'S barge was moored beside the 
river-bank waiting for her majesty. The path- 
way from the palace was lined by her guard, dressed in 
their scarlet jerkins. 1 There was a hum from the crowd 
as the queen slowly advanced, followed by a train of 
courtiers. Half-way down the passage to the river, 
there was a sudden pause. A shower of rain had 
fallen in the night, 
and the ground at 
that spot was wet and 
muddy. The queen 
stopped. 

Suddenly, young 
Raleigh, quick in 
action as in thought, 
left the crowd ; and, 
kneeling, spread his 
velvet cloak before her 
on the ground. 

Elizabeth drew back 
for an instant. Look- 
ing quickly at the 
bending figure, she 
smiled and blushed, then, bowing with a certain graceful 
haste, she stepped on the cloak and passed onward to 
the river. 

It was the affair of a moment, and the crowd dis- 
persed as quickly as it had gathered. Raleigh was 
standing with the cloak on his arm, when a messenger 
from the queen summoned him to the royal barge. 




SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



94 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

Elizabeth was seated beneath an awning 2 in the centre 
of a group of lords and ladies. 

" What is your name ? " she asked. 

" May it please your Majesty," the young man 
answered, " my name is Raleigh, and my father is of 
an old but unfortunate Devonshire family." 

" You have to-day," the queen said, " spoilt a good 
cloak in our service. Take this jewel," she added, 
handing him a ring in which a diamond shone, " and 
wear it henceforth in memory of this day." 

Not long after this adventure, the queen and her 
ladies were strolling one evening in the garden after a 
banquet in the royal palace. Elizabeth asked the Lady 
Paget what had become of Walter Raleigh. 

" I saw Mr. Raleigh," replied the lady, " alone in a 
pleasure-house near the river. As I passed, he was 
writing on the window with a diamond ring." 

" Methinks I know the ring," answered the queen. 
" Come, the truant has doubtless used it to write down 
some happy thought." 

The summer-house was empty when they reached it, 
but the truant was not far away. The queen read 
aloud the words upon the glass — 

" Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall." 

Elizabeth laughed and said, " What think you, Lady 
Paget, shall we end the rhyme ? " She then wrote 
these words beneath — 

" If thy heart fail thee, do not climb at all." 

Did Raleigh think of this quiet evening and the lines 
scratched on the dim window-pane when his life lay 
behind him ? 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 




QUEEN ELIZABETH AND LADY PAGET, 



90 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



He had served as a soldier in France, in Ireland, and 
in the Low Countries ; 3 he had stormed Cadiz 4 and 
attacked the Azores ; 5 he had written poetry and played 
his part as a courtier and statesman ; to crown all, he 
had made a voyage of discovery and called the new 
country " Virginia," in honour of his queen. But 
Elizabeth was dead, and James I. had imprisoned him 
in the Tower on a charge of treason. Thirteen years 
had slowly passed before the chance of freedom came. 

James was fond of money. Raleigh had never lost 
his love of liberty. If the king would give him free- 
dom, and fit out a fleet, he said, he would return with 
gold from the shores of the Orinoco.' 5 

The expedition was a failure.' The English were 
beaten by the Spaniards, and Sir Walter's favourite son 
was killed. " My brains," he wrote, " are broken." 
He might have added that his heart was in no better 
case. 

His friends urged him never to come home again. 

Two noblemen had stood surety for him when he 
left England, and he would not buy his life at such 
a price, was the answer he sent back. So he came back 
to London and to the Tower, and ended his days on the 
scaffold. 8 



1 . Jerkins, short coats'. 

'2. Awning, a cover to shelter from the sun's 
rays. 

3. Low Countries, Holland and Belgium. 

4. Cadiz, one of the chief seaports in Spain, on 

the south-western coast. 

5. Azores, a group of islands lying in the North 

Atlantic, about 800 miles west of Portu- 
gal. 



6. Orinoco, one of the three great rivers of 

South America. . 

7. It is said that James I., who was anxious 

that his son should be married to the 
Spanish Infanta, actually warned the 
Spanish government of Raleigh's coming. 
When Raleigh reached America, he found 
the Spaniards fully prepared to receive 
him. 8. 1618. 



€tass38aE6S<eg 



THE WHITE KING. 



97 



THE WHITE KING. 1 




CHAltLES I. 



u N the 27th of January, 
1649, a great crowd of 
people stood in front of 
Westminster Hall. They 
were waiting there to see a 
king who that day had been 
sentenced to death. 

All through his reign 
$> Charles I. had opposed the 
% Parliament ; and at last, when 
he had been on the throne 
for seventeen years, the dis- 
content became open war. 
The king's party were 
called Cavaliers, 2 while those who fought for the Parlia- 
ment were called Roundheads. 3 

After a few years of hard fighting, the end came. 
King Charles was a prisoner, and had to appear before 
his judges in Westminster Hall. 

The firmness, which he had so often lacked when a 
bold course of action might have saved him, was not 
wanting now. He faced his judges with the calmness 
of a man who believes in himself and in the justice 
of his cause. For seven days, charges were brought 
against him, and he was barely allowed a word in his 
own defence. The sentence had been determined on 
beforehand; and, on the 27th of January, 1649, he 
was condemned to death. 

There was little pity shown to the king. As he left 
the court and passed between a line of soldiers, one of 

(H. I.) G 



98 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

them said, " God bless you, sir," for which he was struck 




CAVALIER AND ROUNDHEAD. 



in the face by his officer. " The punishment, methinks," 
said the king, " exceeds the offence." 



THE WHITE KING. 99 

Only two days were allowed to pass between the sen- 
tence and his execution. He spent the time in reading 
and prayer. 

The day before his death, he bade farewell to his 
children. " Most sorrowful was that parting, the young 
Princess Elizabeth 4 shedding tears and crying so as to 
move others to pity that formerly were hard-hearted ; and 
at opening the chamber door, the king returned hastily 
from the window, and kissed them and blessed them." 

On January 30th, King Charles was beheaded. A 
crowd of soldiers stood round the scaffold, which fronted 
the palace of Whitehall. Bishop Juxon remained beside 
him as he prepared himself to die. 

" There is but one stage more," said he ; " stormy, 
indeed, and troublesome, but very short, and in a moment 
will lead you a most long way." 

" I go," said the king, " from a corruptible to an in- 
corruptible crown, where there can be no more trouble." 

" You shall exchange," said Juxon, " a temporal 
crown for an eternal one. It is a good exchange." 

The king then took off his cloak and his orders, and 
gave them to Juxon, saying, " Eemember." He laid 
his head on the block, and it was severed from his body 
at one blow. 

" Behold the head of a traitor," cried the executioner, 
holding it up to view. 

A shudder passed through the crowd, and a deep 
groan rose into the still air. The life of the " White 
King " was forgotten in the presence of death. 



1. The White King. Charles I. was so cnlled 

because on his coronation day he wore 
a white robe. The people looked upon 
this as a bad omen, and regarded it as a 
strange confirmation that the pall was 
covered with snow as he was borne to his 
grave. 

2. Cavaliers, i.e., horsemen. 



3. Roundheads, a term of contempt, referring 

to the close-cropped hair of the Puritans. 

4. Princess Elizabeth. She died of a broken 

heart in her fifteenth year at Carisbrooke 
Castle. Queen Victoria erected a tablet 
to her memory in Newport Church, where 
she was buried. 



IOO 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



ROYAL-OAK DAY. 




N the 29th of May, a sprig 
of oak is still worn as a 
badge by many people in 
England. Young girls 
carry it in nosegays, 
countrymen and school- 
boys wear it in their hats, 
and old women put it 
between the leaves of 
their books. 

It is Royal-Oak Day, 
and refers to two events 
which took place more 
than two hundred years 
both was King Charles II., the 
Merry Monarch. 
One evening, in the autumn of 1 6 5 1 , four brothers of 
the name of Penderell sat in the parlour of a farmhouse 
thirty miles north of Worcester. They had done a hard 
day's work, and did not care to talk. One of them at 
length broke a long silence by asking his brothers if they 
did not hear the sound of a horse's hoofs in the distance. 
They listened ; the sound came nearer and nearer ; the 
rider was evidently coming towards Boscobel. 2 

When young Penderell opened the door, he found 
the rider had dismounted, and was standing with the 
bridle over his arm. He was dressed like an officer, 
and looked like a man used to command. Both horse 
and rider were covered with mud. 

The young man asked if he was in any danger or 



CHAKLES II. 

The hero in 

55 1 



ROYAL-OAK DAY. 101 

ill need of help. The stranger looked round as if he 
feared to be overheard. After a keen glance, he seemed 
to feel secure ; and, bending forward, he whispered a few 
hurried sentences. 

The young man then begged the stranger to enter 
the house. He called his brothers out of the parlour, 
into which he had taken his guest, and told them in 
a few words that the stranger was none other than 
their king, Charles II. Only the day before he had 
fought and lost the battle at Worcester, and was now 
trying to escape to France. 

Charles did not trust them in vain. The loyal 
brothers planned how they could best serve him. 

Next day, the king, dressed in grey cloth breeches, a 
leathern doublet, 3 and green jerkin, helped them as they 
cut down trees in the woods of Boscobel. In this dress, 
he tried to get further on his way towards the coast, 
with young Penderell as his guide. One dark night, 
as they passed a mill, the miller called out, "Who 
goes there ? " 

" Neighbours going home," young Penderell answered. 

" If you be neighbours, stand," said the miller. 

" Follow me," whispered the king's faithful com- 
panion, and set off at the top of his speed. 

"Rogues, rogues," cried the miller, following them 
till they were out of sight, and he could run no longer. 

Another evening, they were hid in a barn belonging 
to an officer who had served in the Royal army ; but 
Cromwell's soldiers were in the neighbourhood, fo they 
had to return to Boscobel. 

Here Charles found his enemies in still greater 
numbers ; no corner of the house was safe, no turn 
of the road without danger. 



102 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



In Boscobel woods there was an oak, amidst the dense 
foliage of which the king and his friend found shelter. 
The wearied king laid his head on his friend's knee and 
slept. Once, as some soldiers passed, he heard them say 

that if they found the 
king they would kill 
him. His enemies, 
however, did not find 
him, and the oak saved 
him from sharing his 
father's fate. 

_I» «l> o* 

'I- f f 

Nine years later, the 
king returned from his 
| long exile in France, 
and entered London. 
This took place on the 
29th of May. 4 The 
streets through which 

THE RESTORATION — LANDING 01? CHARI.KS II. ]^q rode Were OTeeil 

O 

with branches of oak ; and the people, who shouted their 
welcome, wore sprigs from the tree in honour of the day. 




1. Merry Monarch, so called from his fondness 

for pleasure, gaiety, and wit. It is said of 
him that "he never said a foolish thing, 
and never did a wise one." 

2. Boscobel, Boscobel House is in Shrop- 



shire, twenty-one miles west of Shrews- 
bury. 

3. Doublet, a short coat thickly or douhly 

padded for defence. 

4. The date also of Charles's birthday. 



THE GREAT PLAGUE AND THE GREAT FIRE. 

IN the summer of 1665, a watchman 1 walked through 
a street in London. At one corner stood two men, 
but no other human being was in sight. The narrow 
footpaths were green with grass, the doors of the houses 



THE GREAT PLAGUE AND THE GREAT FIRE. 103 

were nailed up, and a red cross with the words, " Lord, 
have mercy upon us," was painted on many of them. 
The watchman carried a heavy basket, filled with food, 
portions of which he laid on each doorstep. As he 
passed, the men were laughing loudly, but he had not 
gone a hundred yards, when the sound of their voices 
ceased. One of them, with a startled cry, crossed the 
street. The other tottered a few steps, and then lay 
down upon the ground. He was stricken by the 
Plague. 

In this sudden manner did the dreadful disease seize 
upon its victims, sparing neither old nor young, rich nor 
poor. 

Before the Plague had spent its fury, more than a 
hundred thousand died. The great city was full of 
sorrow. Every night the " dead carts " rattled through 
the streets, the men who walked beside them carrying 
flaming torches. The driver rang a bell, and at his 
mournful call, " Bring out your dead! Bring out your 
dead ! " the doors were opened, and the living bore out 
their burdens. 

Mothers might then be seen weeping, as they followed 
the cart, which carried their children to be buried out- 
side the city. Children left motherless were often found 
starved to death. Men lost their reason and became 
mad. 

When the Plague ceased, it was followed by another 
calamity." 

A fire broke out near London Bridge, and spread 
quickly. In those days, the houses were built of wood ; 
to add to the danger, a high wind rose, which drove the 
flames into the city. 

All that was possible was done to check the fire. 



ro4 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



Charles II. commanded the Lord Mayor to have the 
houses pulled down, and thus make a gap which the 
fire could not cross. 

" "What can I do ? " said the Lord Mayor. " I am 
worn out, people will not obey me. We have been 
pulling down houses, and the fire overtakes us faster 
than we can do it." 

Every one did what he could to save his property. 




THE GREAT FIRE. 



People threw their goods into the river, buried them in 
their gardens, or carried them to churches in the vain 
hope that the strong walls would withstand the fire. It 
became at last dangerous to walk in the streets, for 
showers of sparks fell, and under foot were glowing 
cinders. 

" A horrid noise," says Pepys, " did the flames make ? 



A HEROIC WIFE. 105 

and the cracking of the houses at their ruin. There was 
an entire arch of flame from one side of London Bridge 
to the other." 

For four days, the fire blazed. In that time, four 
hundred streets, thirteen thousand houses, and ninety 
churches were burned to the ground. 3 

Thus the great purifier did its work ; and, when the 
houses were rebuilt, brick and stone were used, the 
streets were made wider, with the effect that the Plague 
never again visited London. 

1. Watchman. The " watchmen - ' of London l called "The Monument'' was erected in 

were replaced by a police force ( in the reign London. At the time, it was believed that 

of George IV. the fire was the work of Roman Catholics ; 

2. Calamity, great misfortune or disaster. but this has been disproved. 
". '1'u commemorate the great fire, a column | 



A HEROIC WIFE. 

A TALE OF THE 'FIFTEEN. 

WHEN the attempt to place the son of James II. 1 on 
the throne of England failed, the chief leaders of 
the rebellion were imprisoned. Among them was Lord 
Nithsdale, whose brave and noble wife saved him from 
sharing the sad fate of his comjDanions. 2 

When Lady Nithsdale learned that her husband had 
been sentenced to death, she left her home in Scotland ; 
and, in the depths of winter, she set out for London to 
plead for his pardon and release. Neither frost nor 
fatigue daunted the noble Countess. The snow was so 
deep on the ground that no carriage of any kind could 
be used. She had therefore to ride on horseback the 
three hundred miles from Newcastle. 3 

As soon as she reached London, she at once went to 
the king, and pled for her husband. Everything that 



lo6 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

could be done to save the Earl was done, but all in 
vain — the king would not listen to her prayer. 4 In 
despair, she resolved to free her husband, or die in 
the attempt. 

Lady Nithsdale was allowed to visit her husband 
freely, and she took care to make the guards friendly 
by giving them money. On the day before that fixed 
for the execution, she drove to the Tower with two 
faithful friends, Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Mills. Only one 
at a time was allowed to enter the Tower with her. 
Mrs. Morgan did so first. She wore two dresses, and 
had also a second hood. 

No sooner were they in the Earl's room than Mrs. 
Morgan took off the upper dress and changed her hood. 
This quite altered her appearance. She then left. As 
she went out, the guards thought that she was some 
friend who had been with the Earl before the Countess 
came. 

The guards then allowed Mrs. Mills to enter. She 
came upstairs holding her handkerchief to her face, as 
if she were in the deepest grief. The guards' wives 
and daughters in the outer room all seemed to feel for 
her. But they would scarcely have done so had they 
seen how quickly her tears were dried when the door 
was securely closed. 

At once Lady Nithsdale set to work. The Earl's 
face and eyebrows were painted of the same colour as 
those of Mrs. Mills, while his darker hair was covered 
with a yellow wig. Mrs. Mills now exchanged her own 
hood and dress for those left by Mrs. Morgan. She was 
then led out by the Countess. The sentinel, moved with 
pity, readily opened the door to let her out. As they 
parted, the Countess said, so as to be heard by the 



A HEROIC WIFE. 



ic; 




ESCAPE OF LORD NITHSDALE. 



ioS 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



guard, " My dear Mrs. Catherine, go in all haste and 
send me my waiting-maid. She forgets that I am to 
present a petition to-night ; and, if I let slip this 
chance, I am undone. Hasten her as much as pos- 
sible, for I shall be on thorns till she comes." 

A quarter of an hour later, the guards saw Lady 
Nithsdale lead another lady downstairs, who they thought 
was the lady who came in crying. She had the same 
hood and dress, the same yellow wig, and she held a 
handkerchief to her face, as if still plunged in grief. 

"My dear Mrs. Betty," they heard Lady Nithsdale 
say, " my waiting-maid will ruin me by this delay ; 
run quickly and bring her with you. You know my 
lodgings, and if ever you made haste in your life, do 



so now 

m 



The guards let them pass, and Lady Nithsdale saw 
her husband driven quickly away from the Tower. 

Still, she was not satisfied that he was safe from 
pursuit. So she went back to the room, as if her 
husband was still in it. There she walked up and down, 
talking as if to him, and imitating his voice in her 
replies. When her mind was at rest as to his safety, 
she quietly left the Tower. 

Before many days were gone, Lord Nithsdale sailed 
from Dover 5 to Calais 6 — the sailors remarking that if 
the passengers were flying for their lives, they could not 
have sailed faster. His noble wife afterwards joined 
him, and together they spent the rest of their life 
abroad. 



1. Known as the Old Pretender. His son, Prince 

Charlie, was called the Young Pretender. 

2. Companions. The English Earl Derwent- 

water, and the Scotrh Lord Kenmure, 
were both executed. Several of the minor 
leaders were hung at Tyburn. 



3. Newcastle, on the Tyne, in Northumberland. 

4. Prayer, petition, request. 

5. Dover, a seaport on the coast of Kent, at the 

point where England is nearest to France. 
C. Calais, on the French coast, 21 miles from 
Dover. 



PRINCE CHARLIE'S ESCAPE. 



109 




THE BATTLE OF CULLODEN. 



PRINCE CHARLIE'S ESCAPE. 

A TALE OF THE 'FORTY-FIVE. 

AFTER the crushing defeat at Culloderi 1 on the 1 6th 
of April, 1746, Prince Charlie was hunted night 
and day. Parties of soldiers were sent scouting 2 in all 
directions. The Duke of Cumberland said to them, 
"No prisoners, gentlemen, you understand me;" and 
,£30,000 was offered as a reward. 

The Prince could never feel that his cause was already 
lost. A French man-of-war, he said, would carry him 
back to France ; and some day yet he would meet them 
all at St. James's. 

In the meantime, he must evade 3 his enemies. A 
cleft in the rock would hide him, and by night he could 
sleep on the heather. Though soldiers constantly tracked 
him, there were caves and mountains, there were high- 
land huts and warm hearts within them ready to help 
him. By and by, he would visit them all again, he 
promised himself. 

It was when hiding in South Uist 4 that he met Flora 
Macdonald, a brave and gentle lady, whose home was in 



no 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



Skye. 5 Prince Charlie was by this time in a wretched 
condition. When Flora saw him she wept. She pro- 
mised to be his guide to Skye, and obtained from her 
father a passport for herself, a servant named Neil 
Macdonald, and an Irish girl, Betty Burke. 

Next morning, the Prince was dressed in character 
as Betty Burke ; and, in this disguise, he set out on his 
journey with his two companions. All night, they rowed 
through a wild storm to Skye ; but a greater danger 
awaited them on shore. . 

Flora went alone to the house of Sir Alexander 
Macdonald to seek help for the Prince. There she found 

a party of soldiers, who 
were searching for him ; 
but, with the help of Mac- 
donald of Kingsburgh, he 
reached a place of safety. 

If it had not been for 
the risk they ran, the two 
friends would have been 
amused by the mistakes 
made by the Prince in his 
character of Betty Burke. 
Once, when crossing a 
stream, he lifted the skirt 




PRINCE CHARLIE. 



of his dress high. Next 
time, he forgot it, and let it float in the water ; and 
when the country people curtsied to the party, the Prince 
bowed in return with a gracious air. 

" You are the worst pretender," said Kingsburgh, 
" that I ever saw." 

A few hours later, Lady Kingsburgh, who had retired 
early, was startled by her little girl running into the 



WOLFE AND QUEBEC. 



in 



room, and crying that her father had " brought home the 
most odd, muckle, 6 ill-shapen wife she had ever seen, and 
brought her into the hall too, where she was walking 
backwards and forwards in a manner perfectly frightful." 
At the close of the following day, Flora Macdonald 
bade farewell to the Prince at Portree, 7 and saw him no 
more. Prince Charlie returned to France, but never 
again to Scotland. The love of those who served him 
did not die, even when all hope of his return was gone. 
For long after, his memory was cherished ; and many a 
stirring song is still sung of " Bonnie Prince Charlie." 



1. Culloden, the moor on which the battle was 

fought, lies eight miles north-east of In- 
verness. 

2. Scouting, searching. 

3. Evade, avoid, get away from. 



4. South Uist, one of the Hebrides, off the west 

coast of Scotland. 

5. Skye, the largest island of the Hebrides. 

6. Muckle, Scotch for big. 

7. Portree, largest village in Skye. 



WOLFE AND QUEBEC. 

IN the reign of George II., the English resolved to take 
Canada from the French. Pitt gave the command 
of the forces which were to attack Quebec, 1 the capital, 
to General Wolfe, a very promising young officer. 

The war was not successful at first, and Wolfe was re- 
pulsed 2 at the Montmorenci. 3 Under the strain of defeat 
his health broke down. As he lay in a burning fever, 
the sense of a trust in which he had failed, and of a 
work which he could not accomplish, brought him near 
despair. But hope returned with strength. He would 
not again attempt to drive out the French from their 
position below the town. After examining the shore 
above Quebec, he formed a daring plan. 

The town is washed on two sides by the rivers St. 
Lawrence and St. Charles. In front, it was guarded by 



H2 STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

the castle of St. Louis ; while, behind, the heights of 
Abraham formed a natural bulwark. Wolfe found a 
narrow path winding up the face of these rocks, and 
determined that that way his men should enter Quebec. 

On the evening of the I 2 th of September, the first 
division, led by Wolfe, entered the boats, which were fol- 
lowed in three-quarters of an hour by the fleet. The night 
was quiet ancl bright. As they moved down the stream, 
Wolfe repeated Gray's " Elegy in a Country Churchyard" 
and said, as he ended the last verse, " I would rather be 
the author of that poem than take Quebec." 

They had now reached a cove 4 three miles above 
Quebec. The first to leap on shore was a company of 
the 78th Highlanders, commanded by Captain Mac- 
donald. They dashed at the precipice, and clambered 5 
up the steep rock. When they were half-way up, the 
French sentinel 6 cried out, " Who goes there ? " No 
one answering, the man gave the alarm, and the guard 
turned out, fired a volley, and then fled. All night 
long, boats passed to and from the fleet. 

" It can be but a small party, come to burn a few 
houses and retire," said Montcalm, the French com- 
mander, when, in the early morning, he was told that 
Wolfe's forces were drawn up on the plains of Abraham. 
The officer who had ridden from Quebec assured him 
that they were five thousand strong. 

" Then," said Montcalm, " since we must fight, I will 
go there and crush them." A trumpet-call roused his 
soldiers, and they hurried across the bridge over the St. 
Charles. 

Before ten, the two armies were ranged in order of 
battle on the plain. Wolfe led a force of veterans ; 
five " weak French battalions, 7 mingled with disorderly 



WOLFE AND QUEBEC. 



113 




DEATH OF WOLFF., 



(H, x.) 



H 



7.14 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



peasantry," 8 were all that Montcalm had under his 
command. 

The French general led a fierce attack, which the 
English received without changing their position. "Wolfe 
had commanded his men not to fire " until they saw the 
eyes of the foe." When, therefore, the French were within 
a few yards, the English soldiers fired a terrible volley. 9 
The French wavered and fell back before the rush of the 
Highlanders with their bare claymores. 10 

Wolfe, as he led the charge, was wounded. He 
pressed on bravely, however, and was struck again ; 
then a third bullet lodged in his breast. 

" Support me," he said to an officer who rode near 
him ; " let not my brave fellows see me drop." 

He was carried to the rear. There, as he lay dying, 
with his head resting on the shoulder of an officer, he 
heard a soldier cry, " They run ! they run ! " 

" Who run ? " asked Wolfe faintly. 

" The French," replied the officer, " give way every- 
where." 

" What ! " cried Wolfe, rousing himself by a last 
effort, " do they run already ? Now God be praised, I 
die happy." 

These were the last words he uttered. A few days 
after, the English entered Quebec. Canada had been 
wrested from the French, and has ever since remained a 
British colony. 



1. Quebec, former capital of Canada, on the 

north bank of river St. Lawrence, about 400 
miles from its mouth. The battle took 
place on Sept. 13, 1759. 

2. Repulsed, driven back. 

3. Montmorenci, a river which falls into the 

St. Lawrence a short distance below 
Quebec. 
i. Cove, a creei. 



5. Clambered, to climb with difficulty. 

6. Sentinel, a soldier on guard. 

7. Battalion, a division of an army numbering' 

from 500 to 1000 men. 

8. Peasantry, country people. 

9. Volley, the firing of many guns at once. 

10. Claymore, the big sword, a large double-edged, 
sword, formerly used by the Scottish 
Highlanders. 



TRAF ALGAE. 



"5 




TRAFALGAR. 

THE battle of Trafalgar was one of the most important 
ever won by British valour at sea. England's enemy 
was worthy of her, for the French had at that time made 
themselves masters of Europe, and 
it only remained for them to con- 
quer Britain to become lords of 
the sea as well as of the land. 

In those days, it was not 
easy to find out the movements 
of an enemy, but Nelson, learn- 
ing that the French fleet had 
taken shelter in Cadiz harbour, 
at once set out to attack them. 
At daybreak, on the 2 I st October, the rival fleets met 
off Cape Trafalgar. 1 

A naval battle, in the time of wooden ships and 
guns of short range, was fought at close quarters. Ship 
closed with ship, the guns touched, and the men were 
always ready to board the enemy's vessels and settle the 
matter with their cutlasses. 2 

As his ship the " Victory " drew near the enemy, 
Nelson hoisted the signal, " England expects every man 
to do his duty," and was answered with a ringing cheer. 

Then the " Victory" sailed in silence into the centre of 
the French fleet. Not a gun did she fire till she came 
alongside of the French Admiral's ship, which was so 
hotly attacked as soon to become a burning wreck. 
Next closing with the " Redoubtable," one of the most 
powerful of the French ships, she grappled 3 fiercely 
with her ; at the same time keeping up a brisk fire on 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY 




THE PATTIK OF TBA^AtGAJR. 



"YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.'* 117 

a huge floating castle, the " Santissinia Trinidad." The 
sky was clouded with smoke, and the sea ploughed by 
cannon-balls. 

A musket-bullet from a sharpshooter in the rigging 
of the "Redoubtable" struck Nelson on the shoulder. 
He knew that he was mortally wounded, and asked 
to be carried below. As he lay dying, he heard 
the cheers of his men as each French ship struck. 
Almost with his last breath, he directed the movements 
of the fleet; and before he died he knew that the 
enemy was thoroughly defeated, and that France was 
further than ever from adding England to her dominions, 
and to her empire the mastery of the sea. 

1. Cape Trafalgar, a headland in the south-west i 2. Cutlass, a broad curving sword used by 

coast of Spain, near the entrance to the sailors in the navy. 

Straits of Gibraltar. The battle took place 3. Grappled. A "grapple" was a hook by 

in 1805. which one ship fastened on another. 



"YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND." 

VE Mariners l of England 

That guard our native seas ! 
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, 
The battle and the breeze ! 
Your glorious standard launch again 
To match another foe : 
And sweep through the deep, 
While the stormy winds do blow ; 
While the battle rages loud and long, 
And the stormy winds do blow. 

The spirits of your fathers 
Shall start from every wave, — 



n8 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



For the deck it was their field of fame, 
And Ocean was their grave : 
Where Blake 2 and mighty Nelson 3 fell 
Your manly hearts shall glow, 
As ye sweep through the deep, 
While the stormy winds do blow ; 
While the battle rages loud and long, 
And the stormy winds do blow. 

Britannia needs no bulwarks, 4 

~No towers along the steep ; 

Her march is o'er the mountain waves, 

Her home is on the deep. 

With thunders from her native oak 

She quells 5 the floods below — 

As they roar on the shore, 

When the stormy winds do blow : 

When the battle rages loud and long, 

And the stormy winds do blow. 

The meteor 6 flag of England 

Shall yet terrific burn ; 

Till danger's troubled night depart, 

And the star of peace return. 

Then, then, ye ocean-warriors ! 

Our song and feast shall flow 

To the fame of your name, 

When the storm has ceased to blow ; 

When the fiery fight is heard no more, 

And the storm has ceased to blow. 

Campbell. 



1. Mariners, sailors. 

2. Blake, a famous English admiral under the 

Commonwealth. He destroyed the Dutch 
fleet and gained for England the mastery 
of the sea. He died as his ship was enter- 
ing Plymouth Sound, 1657. 



3. Nelson^ the greatest of English admirals. 

He fell at the battle of Trafalgar, Oct. 21st, 
1805. See preceding lesson. 

4. Bulwarks, ramparts, walls. 

5. Quells, overcomes, puts down. 
C. Meteor, fiery, terrible. 



WATERLOO. 



119 



WATERLOO. 




SUNDAY, the I 8th of June, 1 8 1 5, was a bright and 
cloudless day. Quietness seemed to fill the air ; 
but, at a few places in the south-east of England, a 
sound was heard like muffled thun- 
der. That sound was the distant 
echo of a battle more terrible and 
decisive than Europe had known 
for ages. 

All that day, the cannon thun- 
dered over the field of Waterloo ; * 
all that day, the fierce waves of 
the French attack kept dashing on 
one after another, and one after 
another rolled back broken from the rock of British 
steadfastness. On that clay, an end was put to the 
war which had been wasting Europe. 

For twenty years, Napoleon Buonaparte had been 
the terror of Europe. Italy, Spain, Prussia, and Austria 
had each in turn felt the power of his arms ; and all 
united had proved unable to resist him, till the frost 
and snows of a Russian winter weakened his power. The 
story of his retreat from Moscow 2 is one of the most 
awful events in history. Nearly half a million men 
perished between Moscow and the Prussian frontier. 
Then Napoleon was driven from France and banished to 
Elba. 3 But before three months were over, he suddenly 
appeared again in France, and was hailed as emperor 
by the people and by the troops whom he had so often 
led to victory. 

The allied nations of Europe 4 lost no time in gather- 



120 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 




ing their forces. Napoleon prepared to attack and defeat 
them one by one. He had almost succeeded, when, on 
the field of Waterloo, he found a powerful British army 
under the Duke of Wellington holding a strong posi- 
tion. 

Napoleon knew that the Prussians were also hastening 
_______ forward, and that his only hope 

J-lJfil^^^^^^jP&M was to defeat the British before 

they could arrive. He at once, 
therefore, fell upon them with the 
greatest fury. 

The field of Waterloo is a gentle 
valley covered with cornfields, 
which were then growing ripe to 
the harvest. On the northern 
slope stood the British troops, 
drawn up in squares, with cannon in front. From the 
opposite side the French horsemen swept across, time 
after time, in face of the deadly cannonade ; and, as 
they reached the guns, the British gunners escaped into 
the squares, whose bristling walls of bayonets defied the 
fiercest attacks of Napoleon's cavalry. 

All day long the deadly strife lasted, till, as the 
evening drew on, the Prussian cannon were heard on 
the east. Then Napoleon made a last desperate effort. 
His Old Guard, the flower of his army, was sent to drive 
the British from the position which they had so bravely 
held. 

Advancing with great bravery, they were met by a 
fire so deadly that their lines became thinner and 
thinner ; and, when the survivors 5 reached the British 
lines, they were unable to resist the furious charge with 
which they were met. 



WATERLOO. 




THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO- 



122 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



" Let the whole line advance,'"' was the Duke's final 
command. 

The English soldiers sprang up as one man and 
drove the French in headlong rout 6 across the valley, 
there to be cut in pieces by the Prussians, who came 
pouring in upon their right. 

Never was a battle more hardly won, and never was 
a victory more complete. 



1. Waterloo, in Belgium, ten miles south of 

Brussels ; the battle was fought on the 18th 
June, 1815. 

2. Moscow, in the heart of Russia, was long 

the capital of the empire. 



3. Elba, small island off the western coast of 

Italy. 

4. These were England, Prussia, Austria, and 

Russia. 

5. Survivors, those who remained alive. 

6. Rout, disorderly flight. 



THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 



IN the year 1854? France and England combined to 
aid Turkey against Russia. After the battle of the 
Alma, 1 the allied armies took Balaclava 2 and laid siege 
to Sebastopol. 3 For a week they had bombarded the 
town, when they were surprised by a Russian army. 

On the morning of the 25 th of October, an orderly 4 
rode into the English camp, with the news that the 
Russians had entered the valley of Balaclava. 

From a height near the town, Lord Raglan and his 
staff watched the masses of Russian infantry, artillery, 
and cavalry coming slowly up the valley. They saw 
them take one redoubt 5 after another. The Turks 
gave way ; and the Russians came on steadily towards 
Balaclava. 

On the hill below Lord Raglan, the 93d Highlanders 
and the English cavalry were drawn up. As the Russian 



THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 



123 



horse mounted the hill, they came within sight of the 
93d Highlanders. They charged at a gallop, but were 
repulsed. Slowly they fell back into the valley, where 
they halted. 

Now the Heavy Brigade rode to the attack. The 
Greys and Enniskillens led the way. As a diver dis- 
appears in the sea, they were engulfed in the Russian 
masses ; but, by dint of daring, they fought their way 
through and appeared again at the rear, where they 




THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 

re-formed and charged back. The 4th and 5 th Dragoons 
followed up the attack, and again put the Russians to 
flight. 

The light cavalry had not as yet been engaged. At 
this point, Lord Lucan received an order from the hands 
of Captain Nolan commanding the cavalry to advance. 
When he read it, he asked, " Where are we to advance 
to ? " Captain Nolan pointed to the Russians and an- 
swered, " There are the enemy and there are the guns." 



124 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



A second order followed to the same effect, and 
the Light Brigade rode into the valley. 

" Forward the Light Brigade ! " 
Was there a man dismayed ? 
Not though the soldier knew 

Some one had blundered : 
Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die : 
Into the valley of death 

Rode the Six Hundred. 

A mile and a half lay between them and the enemy's 
guns ; as they came nearer, they quickened their pace ; 
the long line of Russians opened their deadly fire on 
them, and every volley thinned their ranks. Still on, 
on, they rode, cut down the gunners, broke a Russian 
column, and then returned. But barely two hundred 
reached the British lines alive. They had taken neither 
guns nor prisoners, but their heroic courage has made 
their charge one of the most memorable in the annals of 
war and victory. 

When can their glory fade ? 
Oh the wild charge they made ! 

All the world wondered. 
Honour the charge they made ! 
Honour the Light Brigade ! 

Noble Six Hundred ! 



1. Alma, a river in the Crimea, north of Se- 

bastopol. 

2. Balaclava, a small port a little to the south 

of Sebastopol. 

3. Sebastopol, on the western coast of the 

Crimea, then the strongest Russian for- 



tress in the Black Sea, now quite unim- 
portant. 

4. Orderly, a private soldier who attends on a 

superior. 

5. Redoubt, a fortified place to which a garri- 

son may retreat. 

6. Undismayed, without fear. 



THE CAWNPORE MEMORIAL. 



125 



THE CAWNPORE MEMORIAL. 

" Will you give me a drink of water out of your cup ? " 
said a low-caste 1 to a high-caste Hindu soldier. 

" Son of a dog," was the answer, " would it ever 
touch my lips again if yours had denied it ? " 

" You have lost caste already," cried the servant, " for 
have you not bitten the new cartridges 2 greased with 
bullock's fat?" 

Now the cow is a sacred animal in India, and must 




CAWNPORE. 

not be eaten. The servants words were merely a guess 
and untrue, but they spread through India. There were 
other causes, but this was the final excuse. 

The Mutiny 3 began. Wherever there were natives, 
there was revolt ; and soon the towns were few that 
were held by the British. Lucknow 4 was one of thesp. 
towns, Oawnpore 5 was another. 

In Cawnpore, there were about a thousand English 



126 • STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

people ; four hundred of these were able to fight, the 
rest were women and children. Three thousand native 
soldiers mutinied, and their numbers were daily increased 
by a rabble 6 from the district. 

In the town there was an old military hospital into 
which the English now crowded. It was defended by 
low mud walls and a few guns. Sir Hugh Wheeler, 
who commanded the garrison, 7 bethought him of their 
neighbour Nana Sahib, and applied to him for help. 
Nana Sahib was sleek and stout and fond of pleasure ; 
his civilities to the English had been endless, but in his 
heart he had always hated them. Now he came with his 
guns and soldiers, and threatened Sir Hugh that, if the 
hospital were not given up, it would be attacked. 

From the hour the siege began, the suffering and the 
courage of the English were incredible. 8 There was no 
roof between the gallant defenders and the scorching 
sun — the shadow cast by the low mud wall was but a 
narrow line. There was only one well, and it was a tar- 
get for the sepoys. 9 The heroes who dared to draw 
water did so at the risk of their lives — those who re- 
turned were few. 

Still the black masses swarmed about the falling ruins, 
till hunger did what the enemy never could have done. 

After twenty days of fighting, Nana Sahib offered the 
garrison a safe passage to Allahabad. 10 The boats were 
ready to take them down the river. Starving, parched, 
and worn out, they were glad to go. 

Scarcely were they seated in the boats, when a trumpet 
sounded and the native boatmen swam ashore. From 
every side came volleys of shot and shell. The boats 
were soon in flames or stuck fast on mudbanks. Men, 
women, and children struggled in the water, where many 



THE OAWNPORE MEMORIAL. 



127 




THE CAWNPORE MEMORIAL. 



128 



STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 



were drowned or shot. Only four men escaped, while 
a hundred and thirty women and children were taken 
back as prisoners to a building called Savada n House. 

But Havelock and a thousand men were coming to 
the rescue ! In nine days, they had marched over a 
hundred and twenty miles beneath an Indian sun. 
They had fought and won four battles ; the last at 
two miles' distance from Cawnpore. Nana Sahib was 
beaten. That night, the soldiers slept upon the ground 
— their general with his horse beside him and the bridle 
on his arm. Next day, they would enter Cawnpore. 

When morning came, they were told that every 
woman and child had been massacred. It was not an 
idle story. When they entered Savada House, the only 
things they saw upon the ground were scraps of dresses, 
babies' boots, some locks of hair — trifles such as women 
cherish. There was a ghastly sight in the well, and 
the men stood round it and wept, rage as well as sorrow 
in their tears. 

Nothing could be done, for Nana Sahib had escaped, 
and was never seen again. The soldiers stopped to bury 
the women and children, and then marched on to Lucknow. 
There, before the end of the year, the brave Havelock 
died. A few months later, the Mutiny was over. 

Above the well of Cawnpore there stands now the 
white figure of an angel of peace ; her hands and wings 
are folded, and her calm face speaks of rest. 



1. Caste. The Hindus are divided into dis- 

tinct hereditary classes or castes. 

2. Cartridge, a ease containing a charge of 

gunpowder and ball. 

3. Mutiny, open rebellion. The " Mutiny " 

broke out at Meerut in May, 1857. 

4. Lucknow, the capital of Oude in British 

India, on the river Goomtee, one of the 
tributaries of the Ganges. 

5. Cawnpore, on right bank of river Ganges ; 

the massacre took place in 1867. 



G. Rabble, a disorderly crowd of low people. 

7. Garrison, a body of troops in a fort or town 

for its defence. 

8. Incredible, beyond belief. 

9. Sepoy, a native Hindu soldier in the British 

army in India. 

10. Allahabad, one of the sacred cities of the 

Hindus, at the junction of the rivers 
Ganges and Jumna. 

11. Once a charitable house— original name of Sal- 

vador soft ened into Savada by the natives. 



*-H*K< 



S^\ N ^ 



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